My Papa Murdered Mikhoels 9780761865353, 9780761865346

Citation preview

My Papa Murdered Mikhoels

By Vladimir Gusarov Translated by Clive A. Giller and Yuri A. Popov

Hamilton Books An Imprint of Rowman & Littlefield Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Copyright © 2015 by Hamilton Books 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 Hamilton Books Acquisitions Department (301) 459-3366 Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930986 ISBN: 978-0-7618-6534-6 (pbk : alk. paper)—ISBN: 978-0-7618-6535-3 (electronic) This edition was published from the first edition of Moi Papa Ubil Mikhoelsa, by Vladimir Gusarov, originally published by Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Copyright © 1978 by Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Produced and published by arrangement with Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, reprinting, or on any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from Hamilton Books. Cover image copyright © Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Introduction

ix

Part 1 1. Prologue 2. About Homer 3. About father 4. To age seventeen 5. About mama 6. Childhood 7. Ideology 8. First deviation 9. Papa’s friends 10. Pity 11. The whole country 12. All-Saints and Sokol 13. Reflections 14. Boy with a cock 15. Sverdlovsk 16. Kabakov’s black cat 17. Perm; it’s also Molotov 18. He and She 19. The theatre 20. The other grandmother 21. Colleagues 22. Ignoramus 23. 22nd June 1941

1 1 2 3 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 12 12 14 15 17 18 20 21 22 25 25 27 29 iii

iv

Contents

24. Evacuees 25. Commissar Zavirokhin 26. A fighting friend 27. Antselovich 28. To the front 29. The front 30. German leaflets 31. Don’t be a white crow! 32. My universities 33. A situation 34. A pass to all locations 35. Mistakes 36. Again the theatre 37. Crisis 38. November celebrations 39. International Organisation for the Assistance of Casualties (MOPR) 40. The crisis develops 41. Not Tovarishch Stalin, but Yosif Vissarionovich! 42. Seriozha Shtein 43. Dust, dust, dust… 44. The role of Lenin 45. Verkhovsky 46. Internationale Part 2 47. In the remand cell (KPZ) 48. Friday 49. Alone 50. The martyr’s crown of the Russian intelligentsia 51. A twilight state of the spirit 52. The commission 53. One floor higher 54. Taganka—every night filled with fire 55. Balashikha prison 56. The stolypin 57. Kazan 58. The Russian nationalist Soldatov 59. The Anthem of the Soviet Union 60. He is dead, dead, dead… 61. The doctors’ plot 62. Emperors and presidents 63. Beria—enemy of the people

30 34 36 38 40 40 42 45 46 47 50 53 54 57 58 61 62 65 66 68 72 74 79 83 83 84 87 90 97 105 106 110 113 117 118 119 120 124 127 128 136

Contents

v

64. To the gallows of the Bolsheviks! 65. The British subject 66. On the side of the Party 67. Film director Kapchinsky 68. Intellizhens Servis 69. SR Lapshov 70. The dictator 71. Butyrka 72. With your things

140 144 146 150 152 155 158 162 167

Part 3 73. How life treated me when I was free 74. Amorous business 75. Rumours 76. The American Exhibition 77. Two more years 78. My little white pigeon 79. From my diary 80. A death and a funeral 81. Ivan Denisovich 82. Working days 83. Chapaevsky Street 84. Unemployed 85. Tomsk 86. Grandmother Fenia 87. Nikolia-the-fool 88. Television 89. Zaochni Narodni Universitet Iskusstv 90. Kashchenko 91. In the homeland of a great writer 92. I love you 93. At the Ministry of Culture 94. Aesop and the GPU (State Political Administration) 95. A page from my diary 96. Pages from my diary 97. In the Kremlin hospital 98. The Klyazma sanatorium 99. The last lines of a confiscated diary 100. Vasili Ivanovich Chapaev and Petka 101. Yakir 102. Epilogue

169 169 175 179 179 181 182 183 184 189 193 199 201 202 206 207 211 213 215 226 230 232 235 236 239 241 248 250 251 252 256

Chronology

259

vi

Contents

Glossary

261

Bibliography

277

Acknowledgments

The Russian text of Moi Papa Ubil Mikhoelsa was published in 1978 by Possev-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. The translators are deeply grateful for help and advice they have received from Alla Gould, Aleks Markov, Anthony Morris and Dr Michael Sternberg in the preparation of this English text; also for the forbearance and support of family members.

vii

viii

Note on Mikhoels Mikhoels, artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre, was assassinated in Belorussia on the direct orders of Stalin while the author’s father was First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party, and answerable to the Central Committee in Moscow.

Introduction

‘I am happy that, in spite of a disorderly life, I was staggering close to history—although not in one of its brightest periods.’ —the Author

This autobiography spans the years 1925–1970, a tumultuous period in the history of Soviet Russia. In 1925, Vladimir Nikolaevich Gusarov’s birth year, Stalin, having neutralised Trotsky as a political force, formed a new alliance with Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky—directed against Zinovev and Kamenev. At a time when Stalin’s own position was far from secure, it represented right-wing policies: concessions to the peasantry and a relatively slow evolution in line with a policy of Socialism in One Country, where Stalin was committing himself to the ability of the Soviet Union to ‘go it alone’, without waiting for world revolution. Gusarov’s father, Nikolai, began life as a Kazakh herdsman, but, after the Revolution, a combination of charisma and native wit rewarded him with a spectacular rise to power within the Communist Party hierarchy. From the founding of Perm oblast until the end of the Second World War he was its First Secretary, and he later became—from 1947 to 1950—First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Belorussian Communist Party. Gusarov’s young life was sheltered and privileged, and he would have been too young to gain direct knowledge of the collectivisations of 1932-3 or even of the terror years 1936-1938 which together resulted in the deaths of millions of Soviet people. He does however witness a number of incidents that challenge his understanding of the world around him. During the years leading up to the Second World War, Gusarov and his family follow his father in his political postings to the Urals. At one point he fortuitously enjoys a friendly encounter with Marshal Voroshilov. His own ix

x

Introduction

participation in military action is discussed, and shortly afterwards he enlists in the army and soon sees military action for real. Following demobilisation, his father’s ambition for him is to follow a diplomatic career, but he himself has other ideas and, after two years at university followed by the completion of a three-year course at drama school, he launches himself on to the stage. His independence of thought leads him to begin questioning the authority of the Party (he listens to the BBC and Voice of America). A drunken episode in a restaurant—involving an outburst against Stalinism—results in him being incarcerated in a ‘psychiatric’ prisonhospital. From then on his acting career becomes increasingly problematical. It is possible that Gusarov’s father was involved in the fate of Solomon Mikhoels, artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre. In 1943 he, and others, toured the USA under Beria’s instructions in order to raise money to support the war effort and convince American public opinion that AntiSemitism had been eliminated from the Soviet Union, as well as to emphasise the great Jewish contribution to science and culture. Stalin’s plan, originally mooted in the 1920’s, for setting up a Jewish autonomous republic in the Crimea was widely, if cynically, discussed at this time. Stalin was alarmed by Mikhoels’s high profile and popularity abroad. At the same time a radical change in Stalin’s attitude towards the outside world resulted in Mikhoels being seen as an embodiment of the dangers posed by ‘cosmopolitanism’ and in 1948 he was murdered in Minsk (the capital of Belorussia) on his direct orders. After being stabbed by a poisoned needle his body was run over by a lorry to make it seem that he had been killed in a road accident. According to Sudoplatov the assassination was carried out by Colonel Lebedev under the control of the minister of state security of Belorussia Lavrenti Tsanava and Sergei Ogoltsov, first deputy minister of state security. Gusarov’s text only refers obliquely to this crime, and, on the face of it, the bold allegation of its title seems unfair. What is made clear is that Gusarov senior, for all his commanding presence, feels inadequate on account of his poor education; and his political position—always precarious—is further undermined by his son’s growing opposition to Party orthodoxy and by his reckless, drunken behaviour. This results in further periods of incarceration in psychiatric prison-hospitals—Serbsky, Kashchenko, Kazan and Butyrka—as well as shorter periods in the Lubyanka and other transit centres; while his father, to protect his own position as much as the well-being of his son, uses his influence to ensure that he is treated much more leniently than others in the same situation, and is not exposed to the risk of being sent to a labour camp. At this particular time, psychiatric prison-hospitals (psikhushki) were institutions whose inmates fell into various categories. The primary division was between political prisoners (‘Fascists’) and common criminals (‘Thieves’)—and in a strongly conformist society, where Stalin was widely

Introduction

xi

adulated, the former group attracted a good deal of abuse from the other inmates. Apart from the large proportion of prisoners simply serving their sentence, some would be on remand awaiting trial, in which case they were subjected to interrogation and possibly torture as the KGB attempted to obtain a confession, incriminating evidence and the names of associates. Other prisoners would be awaiting transfer to or from labour camps. Political dissidents whose mental state was determined by a panel of ‘experts’ to be ‘pathological’ and amenable to ‘treatment’ would be kept under the observation of forensic psychiatrists, but little or no actual treatment was administered. Imprisonment following sentence under the criminal code followed a standard tariff, with a maximum period of 25 years; but incarceration in psychiatric establishments was more flexible, and was normally determined by commissions that sat at irregular intervals. The ethical dilemmas inherent in forensic psychiatry in any society are overlaid here by blatant fraud: the people in charge are not psychiatrists but KGB personnel. The Soviet Constitution did indeed ‘guarantee’ freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly; but these guarantees were effectively nullified by the clause sanctioning the ‘leading role of the Party.’ In practical terms the Party, as the basis of their attempt to exercise thought control over Soviet society, made use of Article 58 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1934), headed Counterrevolutionary Crime. This contained 14 clauses, whose scope included treason, sabotage, espionage and propaganda. At one point, Gusarov hopes that at trial the case against him will be dealt with under the propaganda clause, 58.10, carrying a relatively light sentence. His experiences in these baleful establishments form the heartland of this book. His vivid descriptions of their staff and inmates, who come from all corners of the Soviet Union—and from elsewhere—are poignant and provocative. He is even able to befriend the son of an English lord (an ‘intelligence agent’). The accounts of mania, despair and arbitrary cruelty aptly reflect the senseless horror of the Communist regime, and the descriptions of his own changing states of mind are by no means the least interesting aspect of his imprisonment, where for many of the inmates feigning madness was a desperate ruse to avoid transfer to a labour camp. Gusarov in the early part of his life is a firm believer in Communism. But as he matures he no longer sees the world through his father’s eyes. He begins to realise that the state’s total control over the thoughts people are supposed to hold in their heads (‘Stalinism’) is incompatible with the European idea of political and artistic freedom. Unfortunately this philosophical standpoint is at odds with his mercurial temperament (exacerbated by alcohol addiction), the fracas in a Moscow restaurant being a fateful example of his sometimes brattish behaviour, which he admits is beyond his control. Given the contending influences that Gusarov is exposed to it is hardly surprising that he waivers in his support of dissident agendas—and he is no

xii

Introduction

Solzhenitsyn, a hero figure with whom he comes into contact during the later years of this autobiography. Writing a diary and distributing samizdat material under the eyes of the KGB inevitably leads to betrayals. One of the more moving episodes in his account is when the drugs that are forced on him in hospital cause a prolonged moral collapse, and he is constrained to hand over a parcel of compromising material to a KGB ‘minder’, who has been planted on him by his father. Just as Gusarov regards his ‘papa’ with a mixture of admiration, pity and disdain, the reader may have conflicting feelings of irritation and admiration towards Gusarov’s complex personality. Gusarov has been able to document his life partly from notebooks and other documentary material that survived numerous searches and confiscations, and partly from his actor’s ability to recall speech. It is this second factor that enormously enriches his account. Some readers will be put off by the raw, discontinuous nature of the writing, and by the lack of a strict time sequence in setting out the events that he describes. (There is also the difficulty—for non-Russians—of getting to grips with a large number of strange names). Hopefully the Chronology and the Glossary at the end of this book will assist with these problems. And it should be remembered that this hoard of memories was compiled in the form of samizdat publications, ie typed out under adverse, indeed threatening, conditions. It would have been difficult for Gusarov to even sort his notes in chronological order, let alone reform them into a more narrative style; and it might be argued that such a smoothing out of the raw material would reduce its force. The somewhat ragged ending to the book is marked with the date 1970, but there are later additions to the text. Thus references to the Yakir-Krasin affair (in chapters 86 and 101) must post-date 1973. Under Khrushchev there was a perceptible softening in the official attitude towards protest movements and samizdat, but in 1966 under Brezhnev the de-Stalinisation process was halted. Opposition to this reactionary policy became the main theme of dissident activity in Moscow, which resulted in the trial of Yakir and Krasin (see Glossary: Yakir-Krasin affair) and the silencing of many dissident voices. We are not told if Gusarov’s was one of them. CAG, 2014

Part 1

1. PROLOGUE Evening, eleven o’clock—the doorbell rings. Ivan Chernyavsky, from the local militia, has turned up. ‘Open the door, you’ve got somebody in there without a propiska.’ I try and talk myself out of it but eventually open the door. The militiaman comes in with an escort, armed. Two friends and my wife are sitting at the table, in the next room my grandmother is sleeping. They demand papers from everyone except myself and my ninety-year-old grandmother. ‘You have somebody living here without a propiska.’ ‘It’s my wife. She’s made an application at the district office, in three days it will be registered. So it’s you who should apologise, congratulate us on our marriage and go away.’ ‘No, you are coming with us down to the militia office. She doesn’t have a Moscow propiska.’ ‘Does this mean she has to hang around at the terminus before we can celebrate our wedding?’ ‘She should wait at the propiska office in Kiev.’ After more wrangling he writes me an instruction to be at the office tomorrow with explanations. Down there it’s the same thing. Chernyavsky quotes some official paragraphs, demands a written explanation, then has a long discussion with my wife. I wait one hour, two hours. Two medical attendants come in, turn out my pockets, tie my hands behind my back and push me into a psychiatric ambulance marked with red crosses, although I don’t resist either verbally or physically.

1

2

Part 1

I find myself with a drunken Tatar, a mysterious-looking girl, an old woman with a haughty bird-like face shrieking nonsense—but they don’t tie up their hands, only mine. He can hardly stand on his feet, but the Tatar bloke pushes a cigarette into my mouth and lights it. I ask him to loosen the rope around my wrists which are hurting a lot, but the attendant stops him. The girl is full of kindness: she calls me her son, bares her breast and moves towards me. She takes off her little cross and hangs it around my neck, although the person she claims as a son is more suited to be her father; then she takes off her knickers and flings them towards the attendant. Finally they tie up her hands, she shouts and curses. We are in the 6th ward of the Kashchenko Hospital; they give me some pills and inspect my mouth. In a roundabout way they ask me about my health and I can’t restrain myself: ‘Why are you asking about my health? Where did you get the idea that I am ill? From the militia? My parents and neighbours have not been complaining about my health! You ought to be ashamed, didn’t you swear the Hippocratic oath?’ They give me a terrible injection. My mouth goes dry. I can’t breathe properly, all I want is to drink and sleep. I can’t go out and talk to my wife— in two minutes I am saying goodbye to her. She is distraught, crying; but they continue giving me injections trying to get me to answer Doctor Vladimir Mikhailovich’s questions submissively. The celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution come to an end, and so do the injections. Towards the beginning of December they discharge me. At the Sokol metro station that fool Misha, thirty years old, is marching up and down like a young kid, lifting his feet high in the air and loudly shouting commands. I say to my wife: ‘I am in the hospital, but Misha is here … I am taking his place.’ 2. ABOUT HOMER Apart from his talents, Homer is superior to me because ‘five cities quarrelled over the renowned birth of Homer.’ In answer to questions about my birthplace I can name only three cities: Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad and Volgograd. I was born on the 15th September 1925. From the age of five I lived in Moscow, in the district of Sokol, on Tchaikovsky (now Savrasov) Street, house 6, flat 3. It was an almost self-contained flat and there was a little garden with an unpainted gate. Gusarov, Vladimir Nikolaevich. Russian, with no party affiliations, still liable for military service. On questionnaires I write that I was awarded two medals although they were lost a long time ago.

Part 1

3

One I received for valorous work in the town of Molotov (Perm), the second for the destruction of Fascist Germany. I won’t say anything further about Homer in this account, only in passing mention Lopez de Vega and Sergei Mikhalkov—so as not to bore the reader with too much erudition. I would be happy to receive any royalties accruing. 3. ABOUT FATHER In spite of being awarded three or four Orders of Lenin (as well as possessing other similar souvenirs) he is only well known in governing circles. A wider public knows about Genardy Gusarov, a football player for Moscow Dynamo (and perhaps for the Central Army Sports Club, I’m not sure). Father was ‘boss’ of Perm district from the moment of its founding to the end of the war and afterwards was an inspector of the Central Committee, or as he loved to call it ‘Stalin’s private representative’, and from 1947 to 1950 first secretary of the Central Committee of the Byelorussian Communist Party. (Better known are his predecessor Ponomarenko and successor Patolichev). It was during the years of my father’s governance in Minsk that Mikhoels was murdered. I don’t know the details. It is entirely possible that it was not my father who killed him but head of the Belorussian Department for State Security, Tsanava, nephew of Beria, or somebody else. Exactly who it was doesn’t change anything. I myself have never been to Belorussia, we didn’t live with father at the time, but I am an accessory. I will never live to see a trial, although I have a decent enough alibi: from 1952 I was locked up in prisons and psychiatric hospitals … My father was no worse and no better than those who wave their hands from the mausoleum, or constitute the ‘intelligentsia’, or breed roses and write their memoirs, or happen to fall under the wheels of history’s victorious locomotive. When I write about father I am writing about the people who were given absurdly inappropriate promotions in the years 1937-38. Their predecessors possessed a different kind of strength, although their demise was certainly pitiful. 4. TO AGE SEVENTEEN Up to this time apparently father used to write on forms: ‘Before the revolution—labourer.’ It’s true, like many others, he forgets how old he was at the time of the revolution. Of course they were not able to finish secondary school and their parents didn’t let them idle their time away, so the result was some miserably hard work.

4

Part 1

I used to ask grandma what got father into being a labourer, but the old woman, not yet having accustomed herself to the rules of the class struggle always mindlessly replied: ‘What was there for him to do—cause trouble in the streets?’ As a boy papa did know how to water and harness a horse and put the geese out to graze. Being uninformed about questions concerning the oppression of the labouring classes he himself often volunteered to do something about it. At the start he lived with his godfather on bread and dripping—and when he was a little older ploughed and harrowed and worked in the smithy. And although times were difficult young people still wanted to be like the grown-us, only he couldn’t see any other grown-ups apart from the peasants and tradesmen around him. There weren’t any camps for Young Pioneers— there’s no doubt about that. Sometimes he worked just for his food, sometimes received a dollop of harsh treatment … Grandma was the poor widow of my papa’s father, whom I never saw; they didn’t have their own house. However, having buried her husband grandma went off on a pilgrimage to Palestine for eight months, leaving her child with her grandfather—a coffinmaker and inveterate drunkard. On my father’s side they were all illiterate, except for grandma, a Ukrainian woman, born Osmak, who managed to finish three classes at her parish school. She worked there as a cleaner and, when her colleague teacher was drunk, as a teacher herself. She painted coffins for her father-in-law, measured the bodies, even painted the verses of the epitaph on the coffins, but most of all she sewed. They expected father to become a carpenter, or a tinsmith or even a coffin-maker, or best of all a village school teacher like uncle Georgi Petrovich, who at the same time was the doyen of a small Russian theatrical troupe. As a prisoner in Austria uncle taught singing to the children of an officer. Father had a fine voice as well. To start with he sang in the church choir on the left side, then in the Red Army, in the cavalry, where he was a lead singer. 5. ABOUT MAMA For some reason life doesn’t work out like it does in a story. In Trenev’s ‘The Loves of Yarovaya’ Shvandya explains to the old woman: ‘If you’ve got a good boss, side with the White party, if he starves you go with the Reds.’ My mother had two brothers: poor Grigori and rich Vasili Alekseevich Tyunyaev an agent of Singer, the Swiss sewing machine company. The older rich one was a sergeant major in the war against Germany, but in the civil war he commanded a regiment in the second Red Army, was fatally injured and died

Part 1

5

in the arms of his orderly. The younger brother, Grigori, always impoverished and bullied, was a fan of Denikin, although it is true that he did later go over to the Reds. When the laws of history come to be worked out the real facts will be ignored. In 1930 they threw Uncle Grigori out of the Party, although up to then he had not concealed the fact that he had been influenced at meetings, and had put on epaulettes to save the motherland; but later he began to pine for his mama and ran away. He is still alive; he became a worker, but now is a pensioner and a people’s advocate. Apart from her brothers mama also had sisters, Tanya and Zina, who were older. Tanya a seamstress was literate and read books, but it didn’t do her much good. When in churches they used to curse ‘that Count Lev Tolstoy’, Tanya, standing with the congregation while the service was going on, would shout out: ‘Long Live Count Tolstoy.’ The police became interested, Tanya poisoned herself with liquid ammonia and died. My mama in childhood prayed zealously and fasted to the point of fainting. After the revolution she changed and ordered the icons at home to be tidied away, while she herself went barmy with komsomol and young pioneer work. Later on she finished three courses of higher education at the institute and wrote out a summary of ‘The Short Course’ about ten times, each time conscientiously reading the text from the beginning to the end. Lyubov Fominichna Zhavoronka, the wife of a minister, sixth months before my mother’s death, brought her a novel to read ‘The Secretary of the Obkom’ by Kochetov; remembering whose book it was, I offered it to father (he himself was for a short time before that secretary of the Tula obkom). Afterwards I asked him if he had read it, and did he like it; but I could see from his eyes that he had not looked at it. A photograph has survived showing mother wearing a long overcoat and tall Caucasian hat and it’s standing on my writing table; I even have a hazy memory of the red scarf that she had on. She was manager of the regional education department and a school director, and was even the secretary of the raikom—either on the personnel or the propaganda side; I always find it difficult to separate in my mind state and party work. In Stalingrad we were neighbours of Poskryobishev. I can remember mama in her guardsman’s fur coat, although she wore it reluctantly, still holding on to the austerities of the twenties. Father on the other hand was always in step with the times. 6. CHILDHOOD They say that when I was a babe-in-arms I yelled incessantly, was late learning to talk, and then only incoherently, jabbing the air with my fingers and shifting from one foot to the other as though I wanted to have a pee—

6

Part 1

which actually happened in my sleep right up to the time I was in the seventh class at school. I had a restless look; I was shy, but full of energy. My parents wanted to name me Budimir or even better Spartak, they were dedicated to the leadership of the world proletariat. Among my first memories of Vladikavkaz is a song about a flirtatious woman and her girlfriend, strolling along. My nurse for some reason took me to the palace of culture, there in the foyer were several grown-ups sleeping under the palm trees, corpulent and serious; they had returned from collecting the grain harvest and were now resting amidst flowers and music … Beneath us lived the owner of a hat shop with a big window, and the boss’s son had a bicycle. I lived in Vladikavkaz with my aunt Zina, my mother’s sister, who is still alive today. She never fell under the influence of the ‘April Theses’ but didn’t attend church, preferring to go out to a dance or for a stroll, for which she was often beaten by grandma Masha, now dead. Zina’s first husband was active in the New Economic Plan but he died leaving only a motor boat and a gun. His son Slava is working for the nomenklatura so will have a lot more to bequeath even though he has been paying two alimonies. In Vladikavkaz aunt Zina had another husband, from Osetia, uncle Yura Tsagalov with a frightening beard. He used to thrash me and Slava, just like Sidorov and his goat in the story. Sometimes he would change his method, lying on the sofa and feigning death with the words ‘if you don’t obey me I shall die.’ The whole house was filled with our heartrending cries, especially Slava’s: ‘Uncle Yura, don’t die!’ Then we desperately shook the wily Caucasian in order to revive him. Tsagalov killed his first wife—together with her lover—in his office, but they didn’t jail him, just deprived him of his post and party card, taking into account his national temperament and the fact that his wife had been making use of his official room and desk for unofficial purposes. But they took me off to Vladikavkaz (at a time when my aunt was already uncle Yura’s wife) hoping that a change of climate would save my life. On the journey mama almost got off the train thinking that she had a dead child on her hands. ‘My little bird, my little kitten, my little puppy’ wailed aunt Zina, caressing me; and they say that I replied with a lisp: ‘You are my little horsh’ … By the autumn of 1930 mama and I had moved to Moscow, to Sokol, where I am now writing down my memories and awaiting some improvement in my fortunes. From the terminus it was a long journey on different trams, I looked through the window and kept asking: ‘Whose house is that?’ ‘Ours’ father replied and I never stopped being surprised that we were going from our house to somewhere else.

Part 1

7

Soon aunt Zina with Slavka came to join us. When uncle Yura gave her a slap for using obscene language, she took umbrage and left. But uncle Yura took this so badly that he died, and this time it wasn’t I who howled but aunt Zina, who was already getting ready to return to ‘this feudal lord.’ My cousin’s influence on me, they said, consisted in teaching me chess moves, as well as boyhood sins which he told me about with great ardour. When aunt Zina moved to Arbat, marrying Doctor Rotshild, I parted company with my ‘elder brother’, not without some pangs of sorrow, even though he used to beat me up terribly. Now he’s an executive with his own separate office and the privilege of being able to summon a car and chauffeur—God! Eight years ago he again gave me a terrible beating—he was a boxer for a time but gave it up due to injury. This happened in a drinking bout after I had called him a Stalinist toady. In Moscow they offered father a flat with three rooms, but after living in a single room, small and gloomy, he refused it. For the rest of her life mother was tormented by having to live in the company of Serafima Ivanovna Khalyarmina, who was on the staff of the NKVD. (Whether it was simply a case of two women in the same flat not hitting it off, or that mother was more and more jealous of Sima’s effect on father, there’s no way of knowing). Today Khalyarmina is on a pension after spending many years abroad building up her resources, and lives in a separate flat in Krasnaya Presnya. 7. IDEOLOGY Many children in their early years are very impressionable, and a gendarme, formed in wax in the Museum of the Revolution, was my special bogeyman. Father often dragged me there—to his own disadvantage. I had only just begun to talk, but, along with verses about Sharik, I came out with lines learnt by heart such as: Gandhi makes brothers Of the factory owners, And Britain puts on Its bloody trial; But while from their veins Blood pours forth, The barricades in India Will not yield their banner! My childhood passed by with scarcely any Fennimore Cooper, Jules Verne or Walter Scott, and this deficiency has yet to be made good; although I was able to read almost everything about the Paris Commune right up to

8

Part 1

Skvortsov-Stepanov, and I also drew sketches, mainly of the Commune. In the film of ‘Treasure Island’ I imagined revolutionary amendments to Stevenson’s story, while that of ‘The New Gulliver’ was already dedicated entirely to the class struggle. In children’s theatre I greatly enjoyed ‘The Negro and the Monkey’, ‘Emil and his Friends’; and what excited me were roles played not by little children but by women with make-up. It wasn’t like that at the cinema. ‘Red Devils’, ‘Arsen’, ‘The Battleship Potemkin’, ‘Chapayev’, ‘Karl Bruner’, ‘Marsh Soldiers’, ‘We from Kronstadt’; even an incomprehensible film ‘Three Comrades’ was good because they sang the battle song ‘Kakhovka’, meaning that although it was set in the past they were real heroes… World history in all its epochs comes in handy for illustrating the class struggle. In this context we studied the verses of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov and it was impressed on us that Pushkin called Pugachev a bandit only for censorship reasons. In 1935 on the amateur theatre stage of the Moscow Aviation Institute I was enlisted in the Young Pioneers and no-one in the world was happier than I, nor less happy than Karlushi Agapov—they didn’t enrol him until later. The Agapovs had four children called Vladimir, Karl, Roza and Maia. (While on the subject of revolutionary names, in Sverdlovsk, the head of the finance department of the obkom, Pospelov, sired a somewhat timid and troublesome offspring and gave him the name Internationale—shortened to Inter, while on the street they called him Pointer. And a joke went the rounds: a mother decided to call her little daughter Tribuna, but father protested: ‘I don’t want everybody mounting her’…) I didn’t intend to laugh at the names—Tribunes, Utopias, Lagshmidtshvars, countless Vilors, Vilens, Stalins and other tokens of our epoch. Pardon me if it happens again. 8. FIRST DEVIATION In the third class at the First Strike school in Chapaev Street I was unexpectedly involved in positive anti-Soviet activity. Along with songs and dances such as ‘Boyar, we have got to you’ or ‘We have sown the millet’ I heard this kind of doggerel in my kindergarten: Lenin, Trotski and Chapai Were sailing along in a boat. Lenin and Trotsky were drowned, So who was left afloat?

Part 1

9

If somebody answered Chapai, it was immediately interpreted as the word Shchipai! Shchipai!—Pinch me! Pinch me! I wanted to know from a classmate who this person Trotsky was. ‘A sailor’ came the reply. It was clear there were not enough sailors in this boat. The little four-line ditty stayed in my mind and two years later when I was at School 48 in Vrubel Street, in a drawing class, I decided to brag about my erudition—having made a sketch of the October barricade, above which fluttered three banners: I inscribed on one ‘Long live Lenin!’ on another ‘Long live Trotsky!’ while Chapai was honoured on the third. They called father to the school, showed him the sketch and there and then tore it up—Kirov had already been murdered. At home father looked at me scarily and cautiously tried to find out what source I had used for this personification of the October theme. They didn’t follow up this criminal act and I slept peacefully that night. I don’t know about father. But the spider’s web of my own dissident activities was beginning to be spun. 9. PAPA’S FRIENDS Papa used to read to me the children’s book ‘Let us Take the New Rifles’ while Mayakovsky was still alive. Later he told me about the poet’s death, but in spite of this event still took me to a skating rink, and the whole family to see ‘The Uprising’ by Furmanov (for grandma you couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate play!) Apart from the theatre I remember a lecture on chess given, at the behest of the Party, by Doctor Grigoryev in the Moscow Aviation institute. He played a demonstration game with Ilya Kap, who was a student there, as were also M. Yangel, M. Pashinin and V. Fedyakin. They often stayed the night with us, sleeping on the floor. Papa was editor of the widely circulated magazine Propeller and at the same time (or possibly a little later) Party organiser at the Institute. Another visitor was the Komsomol organiser there, Gilzin, the only one among the grown-ups who succeeded in beating me at chess. I remember other players from the Institute, Golubovsky and Dzagurov—and then there was Vasya Smyslov, who was still at school. Also studying with them was Kosygin; father used to say that he didn’t take part in communal life. ‘I don’t care for such people—they take everything from the Soviet system and don’t give anything back.’ No better, although in another vein, he berated Suslov: ‘Toady.’ Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel was a close friend of the family, who went on to occupy a humble post for many years. But the relative importance of his and my father’s roles changed; father no longer refers to him as Misha—now he is Yangel, candidate member of the Central Committee, a corresponding-

10

Part 1

member of the Academy of Sciences; and he pursues a secret career in rocketry. His son is not so secretive and takes part in the TV competition game Club of Happy Innovators, in which he is the team leader for Dnepropetrovsk. (In the test firing of one of Yangel’s rockets Marshal Nedelin was killed as a result of his own carelessness). Grandma, disapproving of him until now, recalls Yangel: ‘I went into the bathroom to clean up after this big lad and there wasn’t a drop on the floor, it was as if a girl had been washing herself.’ And not long ago she said to father: ‘Solzhenitsyn? He’s a bigger man than Yangel!’ Vitya Fedyakin died while he was director of the aircraft factory in Gorky; Pashinin was for a long time a professor and later went to live in London. It upsets father that alone among this group of people he was not allowed to finish his studies—evidently he was not a self-assured man; but his two children had to be brought to their senses. Those thousands of Party members were not educated to be academics— for five years they went with their teachers, and now they just chop and carry firewood, their spirit broken: be clear about this! Father arrived at the institute with the knowledge of a parish schoolboy, on his courses they told him about oxygen and binomials, but he never discovered what Pushkin or Lermontov had written. He wanted to be an aircraft constructor, but the Party decided otherwise: they sent him to Kazakhstan (to the state farm ‘Chalobai’, afterwards to ‘Black Irtysh’) as head of the political department (again the party thousands!); seeing him off was my first childhood grief, evidently I loved mama less. Later, by the time father had become an important person, I didn’t feel so much affection and respect for him, but while he still wore a peasant blouse and sang with a raucous tenor voice ‘Far, far stretch the steppes beyond the Volga’ I loved him very much. 10. PITY Some kind of proletarian living in the wooden houses opposite us attacked my dog Dzhimka with a hatchet—perhaps she had bitten him. Grandmother—also one of the people—finished off the gory dog by asphyxiating her against the high green garden fence. I had a slate pencil and a notebook with a black cover in which I used to write and sketch: ‘Full stop, full stop, comma, minus sign—a crooked face’ and so on. I didn’t see Dzhimka’s destruction, but on learning of it I cried and hid myself away from everyone, and—beginning to write with a pencil: ‘Having placed her white paws…’—I shed yet more tears. With equal bitterness I cried for Kirov, but having read Bukharin’s last mortal word I carried around inside myself some kind of

Part 1

11

burden (I have never told anyone about this—not because I knew that to mourn him was incorrect, but simply because I was ashamed—and my parents were far away in Kazakhstan). Grandmother tried to inculcate in me some understanding about God, but this was a hopeless task—I knew for sure that God did not exist and if before going to sleep I asked her to tell me about Him it was only to delay her putting out the light. With difficulty I lived through the Moscow trials, unbearable was the thought of the inevitable death of the accused—surely they had confessed and promised to reform themselves!… How many times had I made similar promises, and they had forgiven me… but perhaps they will make it clear to the Trotskyites that they will be kind to them, and afterwards, without being seen, they will shoot through some kind of hole in the wall, when they will be sleeping, in order to spare them feelings of terror… Or perhaps not shoot them at all—they might put them into a dungeon and feed them pies, sweets, oranges and pears. And Stalin will quietly come to see them and talk things over with them, and together they will drink tea with all kinds of tasty things, look at some films, just so that nobody would know they were still alive… In ‘Pravda’ they wrote: Himmler today has a wound in his heart, And full of pity is the fascist okhrana. Not able to account for this, I fell into Himmler’s company. Our country is the best, is the most just, we don’t have any bourgeois, there are almost no poor people, although not everybody lives equally… From lame Volodka Nedelin they took away his father, hero of the civil war and recent participant in the Spanish war. Many years later at the time of the rehabilitations, his family found out that the authorities came in search of him after he had already been shot… And I recalled how Volodka had boasted that on the railings of their balcony Yakir, the army commander, had done a handstand. (But maybe he lied about the balcony. Later, he was a reporter on ‘Literaturnaya Gazeta’ and ‘Inostranka’ and they rushed to print the story). I knew something about the Leipzig trials having just learned to read; I can remember Papanin’s arctic exploring friends and Levanevsky’s flight over the North Pole, which the radio suddenly stopped mentioning. The jazz bands of Utyosov and Tsfasman, the secret beatification of the Polish revolutionary Dombrovsky, the popular songs ‘Tell us, girls’ and ‘Suliko’. (There was even a joke about this: a man on a beach is flirting with a Georgian girl and the time comes for introductions; she introduces herself: ‘Suliko.’— ‘Suliko? Why are you lying here whoring when the whole country is looking for you?!’)

12

Part 1

11. THE WHOLE COUNTRY Arrived back from Kazakhstan father took me to a rally in the Bolshoi Theatre celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the NKVD. He was invited along with the director of the Moscow Aviation Institute Belaev. We were late and had to sit in the gallery, but to make up for it later we were able to see the event from the tenth row of the stalls. A. Mikoyan read out a report dressed in a dark Kavkaz shirt with a belt. I couldn’t make out what he was saying probably because he spoke with a strong accent. Stalin was not in the presidium, Budyenni appeared after a long delay, and the meeting was interrupted by ovations, a woman of some kind was shouting something. Later ovations again broke out—Stalin had appeared in a box—and didn’t stop until he disappeared from view. But perhaps the stormiest greeting was awarded to the ‘favourite of Stalin’s people’s commissars’ Ezhov. Ezhov stood with downcast eyes—he had a thick black shock of hair—and smiled modestly as though he wasn’t convinced that he deserved such adulation. Later in the concert Obraztsov sang ‘Khabanera’, ‘Fill up the glass’ and something else. They sang ‘The snow-storm’ and the ‘Suliko’ song, and in the second part singers drawn from Aleksandrov’s kombrigada came on stage to entertain us. Much later I learned that Mikoyan at this meeting had described the NKVD as an organisation ‘by far the closest in spirit to the Party’ but at the time I simply didn’t catch it, and in general the report couldn’t in any way be compared with the singing of ‘Kalinkaya-malinkaya.’ During the concert Stalin again appeared in the back of his box (they were singing Georgian songs), the number had to be interrupted, everybody in the hall applauded and shouted until the leader again disappeared. 12. ALL-SAINTS AND SOKOL The district of All-Saints they now call Sokol, and at the place where there certainly was a little hamlet called Sokol, and where the Leningradsky and Volokolamsky main roads fork, a glazed skyscraper has for several years had the cheek to dominate the scene; and the bus stop is called Gidroproyekt. If you want to go from Khimki or Shchukino to the centre then by taking the right-hand fork it is still possible to find our Sokol, one of the most unusual districts in Moscow. Around it is a strangulating ring of new construction, but there was a time when it was part of green woodland dotted with gables, little houses some in German style, some in Dutch. This is where Chertkov, a friend of Lev Tolstoy, ended his days. I am not well acquainted with the biography of this painter but in appearance you might think Repin could have

Part 1

13

used him as the model for his painting of Ivan the Terrible. When they carted him around the streets of the village in his wheelchair, wrapped in a rug, I was scared of his bulging eyes—fixed and deadly. Together with other madcaps I used to go to All-Saints church and break the windows. It’s an ancient church where members of the Bagration family are buried, apart from Pyotr Ivanovich himself whose remains were taken to the battlefield at Borodino. Prince Tsitsianov rests there as well and the tomb of a Georgian tsarevich is preserved in the courtyard. The church was built by Georgians after they were granted an audience with the Russian tsar— they came as vassals, having been defeated by the Turks. The old women there say that Georgia sent money amounting to five million roubles for the repair of the church. I don’t know if that’s correct, but they fixed a plaque to the wall: it is after all an architectural monument and the authorities gave it an illuminated number in the street, but there is no inscription to say it has been taken into socialist guardianship, nor do they hang a flag there on holidays. One day Misha Yangel was giving me a ride on his bicycle and we were just turning to go back into the house when I saw some white shreds falling from the sky. I shouted: ‘Leaflets! Leaflets’, but these were the remnants of two planes—our first giant aircraft the ‘Maxim Gorky’ and another plane with which it had collided. The biggest piece of wreckage fell on a house in Levitan Street—two minutes earlier we had just passed it on the bicycle. They cordoned off the area of the catastrophe so I didn’t see anything more of it. Once grandmother dragged me off to church, perhaps the one on Sretenka or the one on Pokrovka, I don’t exactly remember where. But there was no chess, no draughts, no newspapers, only nasty old men looking down at me from the walls and candles flickering crazily. And here’s grandma again, for no reason at all, suddenly flopping down on her knees! I was small and frightened and rushed out and lost myself among the crowds of people on the street and she had to search hard for me. Although an old woman she was sharp with those who bullied me and she would run after them. They say that she severely beat father when he was a child, even pierced his tongue with a needle when he swore, but she didn’t allow herself to touch me probably because I had threatened her with the police—even though I still wet myself I knew my rights. Grandmother sewed me an overcoat—long for my size, made from some ancient smooth material. On account of this overcoat they jeered at me for looking like a priest. While my parents were far away putting to rights a government farm grandmother brought her grandson up as best she could— sewed my clothes (anything to do with me involved a needle!), did all the washing, gave me encouragement. And in the course of time I got to be thirteen years old. In bringing me up she didn’t see herself as my servant—

14

Part 1

’you don’t owe me anything, it’s your father who’s obliged to me.’ As far as possible I try to show her my gratitude—her ‘father’s blessing’ hangs in my room in a prominent place, and a little lamp burns day and night (when I was with mother and father nothing of the kind was allowed, but the old woman prayed, with her nose pressed against a little cupboard). It’s true, I have to admit, I used to light my cigarettes from these little lamps, and not only when she wasn’t looking. 13. REFLECTIONS Confronted with any question or misunderstanding—even if a tramcar came off the rails—they referred to Stalin’s authority, he was the most important person. Even before I began school, walking along with father, I tried to get a clearer idea of how society was constructed: ‘Who is more important, Molotov or Kalinin?’ Father gave a long and incomprehensible explanation, so I asked him another question: ‘And who is more important, Voroshilov or Molotov?’ Poor father! One-day, suggesting to me that it was not good to take sugar from the sideboard, father finished his speech with the phrase: ‘How do you react to that?’ I was still talking badly, but I responded with a lisped ‘I am not lishtening to you…’ Distracted by something, father would often begin to address me with the adult, respectful form of ‘you’—as though he was making a speech at a party conference… They once asked a medical professor to come to see grandmother for a consultation (in two years’ time she would be ninety years old, but, so far as I remember, she always thought of herself as being on the point of death). They brought the professor to the house in an official car and afterwards as he was leaving they pulled out fifty or a hundred roubles from the hall table and gave them to him. And for long afterwards they used to talk not about the medical advice he had given but about that money. For us it really was a lot, but I’m afraid that for other families such a sum would seem altogether fabulous—those who had enough for milk and butter for their children considered themselves over-provided for, and fancy cake, even in our house, was a real feast, and only the bourgeois ate sweets and oranges. Meanwhile I knew that next to the airport there was a special exhibition hall where they showed films free of charge, where there was a table with oranges and pastries, where they gave out lemon tea and sweets (I was trying to think about a good life for Bukharin and Kamenev, having heard about

Part 1

15

these luxuries). Pastries free-of-charge didn’t tally with the kind of fainting fit brought on by hunger, suffered by the worker Vasili, or with ration cards, or with the thirty thousand under-nourished people who we read about in the paper. And having thoughts about this could not be avoided. 14. BOY WITH A COCK Apart from political worries there were others as well: the tsars, the knights, ‘The Invisible Man’ whom I feared, engineer Garin with his hyperboloid and of course the shameful and burning theme of sex. Slavka instructed me in great detail and I performed under the blanket what the majority of boys get up to, but not having any physiological explanation for it. Until father became the most senior communist of Perm oblast, his friends were always coming to stay with us: dark round-faced Sasha Arakelyan (he sometimes brought with him a huge leather bottle full of wine) and Viktor Vasilievich Davydov, a full member of the NKVD, who gave me a copy of Hugo’s ‘Ninety Third Year’ in an illustrated children’s edition; I remember to this day Simurdain, Govain… One-day Davydov arrived with his young wife Rita and my parents lent them the use of their bed. I heard sounds that I had never heard before—there was one time when my parents quarrelled in the night, most likely mother was giving my drunken father a beating… but no it was not like that. Surely it was the very thing that boys boast about. They say they do this with the most attractive and unapproachable girls in the class… (Already in ‘First Strike’ School there was a special tutorial room, and a medical room as well, where they asked the boys the question: ‘Have you corrupted any girls?’ Handsome, dully pale Oleg Dubrovin in his own confession, answered: ‘And how!’ To us he was more specific: ‘twice.’ Others confirmed that it had happened to them four times, even five times…) The squeak of the bed stopped, there was the sound of a match being struck, and it flared—Viktor Vasilievich lit a cigarette and they began to talk in whispers, later there was more sharp squeaking from the bed and heavy breathing… It seemed as though it went on all through the night… In the morning I looked closely at both of them: Davydov seemed to have gone rather pale, as for Rita… the boys say that afterwards you can tell by the way she places her feet, but nothing was noticeable… We used to have a randy badly trained bulldog called Chan, often having spoilt some of the small cushions—a wet red carrot would spring out when he stood up on his hind legs and tried to climb on everyone, for which he used to get a beating.

16

Part 1

Not in any other school did I see such beautiful girls as in our school in Moscow. Blindingly so was Edda Tarakyan, not far behind were Maia Orlova and Faya Fiskind, and the Czech girl Nelya Krzhivanek conceded nothing at all. One-day as I was running along the road I spotted a small but grownup bike—a ‘Ukraine’—I looked up and there on the bike was Nina Anisimova in a grey smock, an outstanding student from our class who lived in the seventeenth block of the NKVD houses. The bicycle was of a kind that immediately made you want to polish it, oil it, preserve it, cherish it—in short possess it. Since it seemed inseparable from its rider, let her be part of the deal. It can stand in the room while she… Well, papa does sleep with mama… I will hold my breath, quietly kiss her and tenderly snuggle up—very carefully so as not to awaken her… Lord! If You really exist, make it so that Nina Anisimova becomes my wife!… We won’t have any children of course, better to have lots of toys and two identical bikes. We won’t do any of the dirty tricks our parents get up to—is it a small thing that they are considered necessary and even acceptable, how could I love her afterwards? Let’s manage without children and without those tricks, I will embrace her and give her kisses, and my heart will sweetly stop beating, as just now, when I embrace and press a cushion against myself as though it were Nina—quiet, ash blond, and with such a tempting way of lisping ‘shsh…’ And in the evenings we will ride through the pine forest on our identical bikes, only mine will be a man’s bike with a straight frame and hers will be girl’s bike with a curved frame. If we could ride side-by-side I would have my right hand on the handlebar, she would have her left, with our free hands together, hers in mine… One day I brought home a wet dirty, semi-transparent, elongated, oblong piece of rubber that I had picked up in the street. Grandmother took this piece of ‘intestine’ from me and threw it into the stove and agitatedly asked: ‘Do you know what this is?’ but she didn’t explain anything… In the Camp Fire magazine I read a story called ‘In Camp.’ A boy kissed a girl (or perhaps the other way round) and then each ran off to a separate part of the camp; then in the morning they parted forever. No, they should have waited (waiting is necessary for some reason), but in return they would no longer have needed to part, until doctors invent immortality that is. To defile Nina was forbidden, she cannot ‘part her legs’, like the ‘little sun’ in the joke. Not a single boy must touch her with his wrinkly prick; no one is allowed to humiliate her with absurd dirty behaviour. A childish, agonising, shameful, and ultimate secret filled my whole existence and tortured me every day, while Nina Anisimova—the ashen fairy— taking herself around on her two-wheeled ‘Ukraine’, did not know how to know what I knew.

Part 1

17

15. SVERDLOVSK From looking after Kazakh sheep they took my father almost without any transition into the Central Committee; and then in the spring of 1938 at a session of A. A. Andreev’s group they elected him to be third secretary of the Sverdlovsk obkom. At the same time the workers of Nadezhdinsk elected him to be their deputy in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. Father departed, while mother and I stayed behind for the remainder of the academic year (she was the manager of the regional department of people’s education); afterwards we went to join father, and were straight away taken to a dacha two kilometres from a fabulous and bewitching lake called Baltym. The first secretary of the obkom, Valukhin, had a detached dacha, as did the chairman of the oblispolkom Semyonov, but the ‘second’ and ‘third’ secretaries—Medvedev and Gusarov—were together in a shared dacha. A pockmarked waitress Julia brought a tray with three different soups in tureens for us to choose from. In Moscow grandmother would always ask me: ‘What would you like to eat?’ I, in turn, would enquire with some interest: ‘What is there to eat?’ It was made clear that there was gruel (or potatoes) but only one thing; there was no variety, so that the very question: ‘What would you like to eat?’ was purely rhetorical. But here—three different first courses! I don’t remember what I chose, but I expressed my surprise so loudly that Julia smiled indulgently. The same thing happened with the second course. Some families owned (more correctly, could make use of) a big allotment, a boathouse, facilities for bathing and a huge garden; even a motor boat and boatmen were put at our disposal, although we didn’t make much use of these facilities; and I can’t ever remember seeing anybody with a spade or a rake in their hands—special people existed for this kind of thing who did their best to keep out of sight. At the centre of attention was the family of the ‘boss’ of the oblast Konstantin Sergeevich Valukhin, at one time chief of the Omsk NKVD. The man in charge of the dachas, a fragile elderly man, stood before Valukhin like a common soldier before a field-marshal. Konstantin Sergeevich spoke through clenched teeth, rolling two billiard balls in his hand, not looking at the stiff and straining man in front of him. I was unused to such behaviour. Along with Valukhin’s wife, a beautiful nervous lady, lived her father Mefodi Fedorovich, a provincial with a straw hat, forever playing billiards, and her tubercular brother on a special but seemingly ineffective diet. Valukhin had two sons—idiot Vadik, twelve years old, who survived meningitis at an early age; the second, a little younger, evil and unpredictable. He hit Vadik, took his pants off and taught him expressions which his parents then tried to beat out of the fool by thrashing him within an inch of his life. Vadik

18

Part 1

loved to gaze at cars, when he would smile enigmatically and ceaselessly repeat ‘mashina-ma.’ Various cars came to the dacha, most often a Zis-101. Vadik would also say: ‘the sun is laughing and pointing.’ This phrase he could repeat by the hour in response to various things that pleased him, with different intonations. All attempts to teach him anything other than ‘car’ or ‘sun’ (or some obscenities) ended in failure. 16. KABAKOV’S BLACK CAT Ten kilometres from our dachas were some others belonging to the NKVD. On a number of occasions we had guests who came from there: Viktorov and Varshavski, without their families and always drunk; even I noticed this when I was only thirteen years old. I remember how they sat at the table—fat dark Viktorov used to call Varshavski his student, and he, flabby and red haired, grinned helplessly and fell asleep. One day Valukhin went off hunting and disappeared—first one night then a second, but he didn’t return. I don’t know whether there were bodyguards or not, but there certainly were militia posts at the entrance gates, although that’s not to say anything about the defences of the dachas themselves. Viktorov had taken it upon himself to yell at the guard who opened and shut the gate: ‘They put you here instead of walls, f… your mother!’ The semi-official gatekeeper pulled himself up, glowered at the temperamental officer wearing the diamond shaped badge of the NKVD in his buttonhole, and at the top of his voice yelled the same phrase: ‘You were put here instead of a wall!’ (with the same obscenity). When I was a child I was horrified by abusive language, and especially ashamed in the presence of my parents; but here I understood—something had happened that was important in life, probably connected with the intrigues of mysterious enemies, so bad language was in order. Valukhin in the end returned safe and sound dragging home either an elk or a deer, its side torn and abraded. He himself looked the worse for wear, and older. They skinned the carcass outside the kitchen without him. Valukhin was my chess partner. He was a weak player and had never even seen the covers of any books on the game. At that time I had already read some of Maizelis and had just received a certificate of the fourth rank bearing the autograph of grandmaster Ryumin—but Konstantin Sergeevich managed to overpower me with his pawns, just like Philidor. Now and again I would suggest a game and he never refused. In the autumn I went into the sixth class. The Ural girls struck me with their plainness and lack of appeal, and on the whole I can’t remember very much about that school (where I was a wretchedly poor student).

Part 1

19

The Young Pioneer Palace in Sverdlovsk stood opposite a house where, in the cellar, the tsar’s family (including the children) were shot. I never visited the ‘house museum’, but used to go into the Palace to play chess. In the late autumn news reached my ears that they had shot the head of the NKVD Viktorov and sentenced his ‘student’ to twenty-five years. Or perhaps it was the other way round. I asked: ‘For what?’ ‘Varshavski before the revolution was a Bundist, and Viktorov knew about it and concealed it from the Party.’ ‘A-ha!… Then of course…’ taking my time to respond, and then dashing off to the Young Pioneer Palace. That autumn they appointed papa to be first secretary of the newly created oblast of Perm; he and Valukhin were sparring over billiards as to which was the better district. ‘The Motovilikha factory is not smaller than Uralmash!’ ‘Yes but only peasant women work there!’ Valukhin’s oblast certainly was a little better, but he wasn’t happy there for long—they removed him. Learning about this I went to see him on the third floor. He opened the door himself, unshaven and haggard, looking just as he did after the recent hunting trip. The flat smelled of burnt paper. His family had disappeared, although only a few days earlier when I called to collect a pass for the theatre the whole household was present. I suggested a game of chess; he didn’t refuse, I lost and left—I never saw Valukhin again. Mama didn’t tell me off for this visit or even reproach me. Much later, in Khrushchev’s time, she took in—extremely deferentially—Shepilov, after he was ostracised by Khrushchev and deprived of an official residence. The Medvedevs had a black cat Arsik; every week they brought him to the dacha and he slept peacefully the whole way. Before this the cat belonged to the family of Kabakov—a delegate at all the party conferences. But they removed Kabakov, and the cat went to the new secretary, Stolyar, who was also quickly replaced. Valukhin refused to have anything to do with an inherited cat, so it ended up with Medvedev, the second secretary. Returned one day from a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR father said to mother: ‘Guess who I met among the deputies?’ ‘Who?’ ‘Valukhin! Do you know what he is now? Director of a pig farm!’ Valukhin was awarded a gold sword for the Civil War and was still the bearer of the Order of Lenin, but now he had to be thankful for still being alive, working as director of a shabby government farm. One thing he did right was to refuse the cat! I don’t know what happened to Medvedev, nobody ever said anything more about him. I only caught occasional glimpses of the new secretary Andrianov, and can only remember his worn astrakhan collar.

20

Part 1

One day when it was still summer we visited Kabakov’s now empty dacha, it was located on an uninhabited island in the middle of the lake; wild swans swam around it and it was only possible to get there in an amphibious vehicle. The luxurious two-storey house had a special billiard hall—not like Valukhin who only had a single billiard table! Behind the house was a mass of outbuildings, but all stood empty and abandoned… On the eve of the New Year 1939 we set off for Perm—in a separate railway carriage, taking with us a fig tree, a palm, three suitcases and grandmother Masha. 17. PERM; IT’S ALSO MOLOTOV In Perm we didn’t stay in a hotel but went straight away to the old Chekist house—to a five-room flat on the fifth floor that had just been refurbished. It faced away from the sun and for a long time smelled of paint. Because of father a militia post was installed at the approach to the building. Although this place had a more provincial feel about it compared with Sverdlovsk, that drawback was compensated by papa being the most important person there. It was in Perm that Akulov, the hero of the civil war, lived and safely concluded his life. The central square of the town is named after him. Also there was a certain Levotsky who was revealed to be an enemy of the people literally on the night before the elections so that new lists with a portrait of Viktorov had to be hastily pasted up. A year after Viktorov took Levotsky’s place father became the candidate, amply ‘justifying the confidence of the electors’, for he belonged to a new generation that had not taken part in the horrors of the revolution and the civil war. Papa, for example, was very surprised when, about fifteen years ago, I called Trotsky the founder of the Red Army. When he was serving as a soldier Trotsky’s name had been erased from military manuals. Alas, at Perm also I did not see the kind of girls I had seen in Sokol, with the exception of one Svetlana Rimskaya. Secretly I respected her, as well as the boy who shared the same school bench with her, because they continued to sit together in defiance of the class instructor’s orders. For some reason nobody dared joke about them sitting there like a bride and groom. Before we went to the Urals my hair was cropped close to my scalp and they dressed me in short trousers. Father arrived at a sanatorium attached to the ‘Zhavoronki’ railway station dressed in a white tunic. ‘Is your father a sailor?’ the kids asked enthusiastically. ‘No, he is the editor of the Propeller newspaper’ I explained. ‘Ah, that means he is an airman’ they consoled me. In Perm nobody ever asked who your father was…

Part 1

21

In Moscow perhaps the expectations were higher, but in Perm my studies went a lot better. More likely they didn’t dare award me a second grade—for political considerations. My German teacher, Kiselyova was delighted with my pronunciation. (In Moscow we were taught German by Lina Petrovna Kepe; no one doubted that she really was German, and only when the war began was it revealed that she was Estonian. True, even People’s Artist of the Republic Boris Yulyevich Olenin, until the war, described himself as a German author; but then he had at great length to make clear, where necessary, that in no way was he German, that his father in his own time had taken up the Lutheran religion. In that way he was what in Russia used to be called a vykrest). In Perm I was able to see more of my all-powerful father, and slowlyslowly a doubt began to creep into my soul—what was it that made him so famous, why did his subordinates so adulate him? There was nothing at home likely to be the reason for adulation: father often drank, and when in a drunken stupor, apart from making unseemly noises, would often chase after the cat for hours, demanding that they lay her down on the bed next to him, which enraged mama. 18. HE AND SHE Grandfathers and grandmothers had no authority at that time; on the contrary the young oppressed the elderly, scorning their beliefs and morals. But in due course this situation will change, and to be unwilling to learn lessons from the past will be considered shameful. The new regime helped the young, while the experience of the elderly was cheapened and ridiculed; so the only thing old people could do was to mutter under their breath: ‘Under the tsars a pound of flour used to cost…’ But it doesn’t matter how much it costs now, if, in the Communist future, there are going to be mountains of flour—so don’t bother to count and measure!… My parents were good-looking. I was not exactly a freak, but to judge by the photographs I was not up to the standard of either of them. And I yield to them in many other ways—in perseverance, in life skills. But what you actually do with your life could depend a lot on the accident of being an only child from a privileged family… Father—a bluff man, soul of the party, a leader, braggart and fantasist. Mama—a withdrawn, watchful, pedantic person. On the whole I took after neither of them. Perhaps they were not physically suited to each other. Already after the war mother used to complain to my girl friend: ‘You put your arms around him, you kiss him and he just lies there like a log…’ Father in his turn used to tell me: ‘What does she want from me? A stallion perhaps, one that begins to play a little bit; but then she is so tense… And she goes along in a sulk,

22

Part 1

jealous of every one, always playing the detective, trying to find out where my car is parked, wanting to know if I might have deceived her.’ From early childhood both sides tormented me: ‘Which of us do you want to live with?’ I always gave the same even-handed answer: ‘With you and with papa.’ (Or: ‘with you and with mama’, depending on who asked the question). One day strolling through a pinewood with mama, I quite spontaneously said: ‘Mama, love Papa!’—already taken for granted (according to her), but the resolution was abandoned. So far as I could tell they were both cold towards each other. Only once, when I was already grown up, did I see father take mama in his arms and slip his hand over her breast—this was when I was on leave from the front. Our way of life was such that even at the theatre he had to be seen surrounded by a group of his close associates. Nobody knew if Stalin had a wife, but he too only made an appearance in public when in the midst of colleagues and unknown officials. It was necessary to keep up this style whether you were secretary of the obkom or of the kraikom or of the Central Committee of the Republic. Father wore a semi-military uniform, with a Stalin-style forage cap, but went without a moustache, as did the others, incidentally. When, in Moscow, Litvinov, and afterwards even Molotov, appeared on the tribune in Red Square in a hat, everyone was shocked, but quickly guessed that this was for diplomatic reasons—it was necessary to blunt the vigilance of the bourgeoisie in the rest of the world. But in the provinces only an important professor could allow himself such ideological inconsistency, somebody, that is, who was not a member of the party. And so mama and I sat in the stalls in the front row while father sat in the box on the left-hand side reserved for members of the obkom, which did not have a very good view of the stage, but where he was beyond the reach of a terrorist. As a guest he preferred to be alone—away from the jealous and critical eye of mother. I don’t remember if they had any kind of serious discussions at home. 19. THE THEATRE I saw quite a lot of the theatre in Moscow but only as the result of a school programme or of some incidental family initiative. Slepoi who sang to a guitar accompaniment the ‘Sokolovsky Chorus’ in Arbat produced in me a sensation vastly stronger than the performance in the children’s theatre of ‘Emil and his Friends’, to which father took me twice by mistake. I only distinguished a professional from an amateur performance by the larger amount of money allocated for ice cream at the former.

Part 1

23

It was in Sverdlovsk and Perm that I began to regularly poison myself with the sweet drug of the theatre. (The families of responsible workers didn’t have to pay, and this concession extended to the cinema). In Sverdlovsk I heard Gounod’s Faust for the first time—I had to admit that until that day I had not once come across Goethe’s name. ‘Eugene Onegin’ I also knew from Tchaikovsky’s opera and not from Pushkin. But what pleased me much more were ‘Silvia’ and ‘Rose-Marie’ in the Sverdlovsk musical-comedy theatre with the incomparable—as they said there—comic Dybcho and the heroes Viks and Vysotski. On one occasion I slipped off my seat from laughing and fell on the floor—owing to the fact that I was sitting in the front row. Artists who knew Dybcho recount that he could bring even his partner to a complete loss of self-control. Yarona had a physiognomy that was dopey and laughable enough perhaps, but Dybcho’s appearance was like a cadaver out of a tomb, enough to bring on an attack of colic. (They said that in life he, like Zoshchenko, was a melancholic). I was lucky enough to slowly absorb some sort of spiritual culture. Something was developing in my mental outlook, not from the efforts of my family or from school (I cannot recall school without revulsion) or even from the influence of literature (here apparently I needed a guide as well, but by my side I did not have the illiterate cook Smuri, who was nevertheless in love with books. I read Ostrovsky’s ‘How Steel was Tempered’ but I couldn’t go on reading that for ever). Neither did music seem to have a positive influence on me, although father loved to sing, especially all those well-known fourline stanzas. This was his favourite: From the sky a little star has fallen Straight down onto the rooster’s beak – It was so awkward for the cockerel, So he shouted out ku-ka-kureek! And then the refrain: What are you, what are you, what are you, what are you!… I am a soldier of the ninth troop! And so the theatre became my place of education, attendance at which no payment was demanded, while if I chose not to go there our places would be left empty. (And by the way, our standard of living had risen so high that I don’t recall our exercising any kind of economies). The first ‘celebrity’ whom I was able to see at close quarters was an actor from Viatsk, later a member of the Perm theatre and now a People’s Artist of the Georgian Republic, Ivan Nikolaevich Rusinov, official orator at the Moscow Philarmonia. He is even now surprisingly handsome, but thirty-five

24

Part 1

years ago he could rival Apollo himself. As a classical hero, he could have been an adornment of the best stage in Moscow if he had not been born the son of the vicar of Pavlo-Posadski in Moscow, as the result of which he was exposed more than once to persecution—for of course you cannot take for granted that ‘ the son is not answerable for the father’. After the war, working in the Mali Theatre, he was sentenced to five years’ exile (you need to know what the tariffs were in those days to be in no doubt that Ivan simply failed to denounce someone whom he should have denounced; because the tale he might have told these people would have carried a ten years’ sentence, not in exile, but in the camps). ‘Dog in the Hay’ with Rusinov in the role of Teodoro I almost learnt by heart, not missing a single performance if I could help it. ‘Dog in the Hay’ did not make any special mark on my literary taste, but in comparison with ‘Silvia’ it was real progress. At the house of the young pioneers they started a literary circle. Learning that Rusinov was going to be the leader, I went there—along with eager young performers of Mayakovsky’s poem Paspartiny—and dragged along with me an outstanding student from our class Pavlik Sedykh. From Pashi I cribbed the answers to test papers and he prompted me in lessons, but I was already an authority on the subjects of chess and fine art. Pavlik lived with his grandmother; they didn’t know if his parents were still alive and he was never able to recall anything about them. Rusinov was the sun in my sky: his demeanour was always alert and optimistic, and I copied as far as I could his bearing, dress, facial expression and uniquely unerring intonations. And what did he read? He read what they wanted him to read, although that did include Pushkin and Gogol. ‘To live not by lies’—shouldn’t Ostrovsky’s precept apply to an actor? If today you play Chatsky, a hero in one of his plays, and tomorrow you are supposed to play the part of a party organiser or leader of industry, then surely you would become part of industry, or of the state organisation; you cannot say that you won’t take on that role because of your moral reservations. Can you not take leave of you integrity, as many writers do, and simply not make a fuss, or feign illness in the manner of a communist hack? But to simply refuse—that’s not allowed. And under the guidance of Rusinov I read over the radio Mayakovski’s ‘Into one hundred and forty suns’, ‘To Comrade Nette’ (Nette was killed while he was on active service, he was a real hero—but the rest were rubbish). Until then Ivan Nikolaevich himself had been reading Sergei Vasilev. In the summer Rusinov went to Rostov-on-Don, to stay with Zavadsky, a literary celebrity; while I, having said farewell to my first real teacher, suffered a desolating depression, threw myself into the river Kama and swam across it twice, all the while mindlessly repeating the lines of his monologue:

Part 1

25

‘In such a loss there is a little sadness, But sometimes you can lose much more!’ 20. THE OTHER GRANDMOTHER My paternal grandmother, who lived with us only during the war years, stayed behind to look after our Moscow flat when my parents took Maria Andreevna—mama’s mother—off to the Urals with us. Maria, Masha, had smallpox and was left with scars. Her father, not wanting apparently to palm her off, arranged for her to enter a monastery, but at an inn on the way, some kind of drunk—unconcerned by the appearance of her face—made a show of himself and proposed to the scarred girl; after which Miss Smirnovaya became Mrs Tyunevaya, and with his help produced six children (and perhaps even more). In any case when the husband passed away she was left with six of the small to the smallest on her hands; it was as though she had run her head into a noose. Grandma Masha made up her mind to do this very thing, but they grabbed her just in time. So that’s how grandmother came to manage our household in the Urals. Religious she was not, although she loved to repeat a stock phrase: ‘Look, Ivan, it’s all right if God doesn’t exist; but when we find out who does exist, what are we going to do?’ Grandma Masha unquestioningly subordinated herself to mama and trembled in front of papa; but she just had kind feelings for her other son-in-law Yevgeni Ivanovich Rotshild. He was a doctor, an only child, with an intelligent attitude towards her generation as well as ours. She herself was once a nurse, and she kept by her side a thick medical handbook; so, although only recently literate, here was a daughter who had gone beyond being a doctor— she was seen as the highest medical authority! And how well mannered! From morning to night she asked after everybody. When we were in Moscow there was only one problem—the room on Arbat was only ten square metres in extent and that was for everybody including Slavka. Early in the morning on one new year’s day grandma Masha (she slept in the damp communal kitchen) went to the toilet and found her dear son-in-law in there. He had forgotten to lock the door. Grandma Masha looked lovingly at the doctor, sitting helpless and confused on the rickety toilet seat, and said: ‘I wish you a Happy New Year, Evgeni Ivanovich!’ 21. COLLEAGUES Thanks to the efforts of grandma Masha they fed and watered any crowd that came along to the house in Perm, mainly members of the obkom office—five secretaries, the chairman of the oblispolkom, the head of the NKVD, several

26

Part 1

directors of the biggest industrial plants and a multitude of guests from Moscow. During the war the number of official secretaries in Moscow, in charge of numerous departments, exceeded twenty, among whom were Pysin, now a senior member of the nomenklatura, and Sychiov, now head of the health department of the Moscow Kremlin. Beletski was in charge of the health department of Moscow oblast, and later head of the health service in the RSFSR. But because at this time neither he nor Pysin nor Sychiov went into the obkom offices, they were not invited to our house. On rare occasions the director of the aircraft factory, Soldatov, and the director of the Motovilikhinski ordnance factory, Hero of Labour Abram Isaevich Bykhovski were invited (his son a chess master incidentally). But Arkadi Dmitrievich Shvetsov, the aircraft constructor, never came to see us (he shared the same sad fate as the composer Prokofiev—dying on the same day as Stalin, so the Soviet people paid not the slightest attention to his death). Local artists, poets and writers were not invited, not even Vasili Kamenski, who was a colleague of Mayakovsky. Among the evacuees and those arriving on tour were some really well known people—Ulanova, Botvinnik, Messing, Kaverin, Tynyanov, Zavadsky. As head of the industrial trade department of the Moscow oblast, I. V. Yagovkin did greet people from the art world, and he invited to his home A. Mariengof, L. A. Khodzhu-Eynatov and the composer A. A. D’Aktil. These guests gave him a certain ‘status’, but in our house they didn’t understand this. But when the people’s commissar of timber industries N. M. Antselovich (arrested long ago, but for some reason not imprisoned) came to visit us he was received with great honour. Another guest at our house, but not on account of his rank, was Georgi Timofeevich Vigura, director of a small factory. His humorous disposition, his card tricks and his beautiful wife served as his entrance ticket. Sometime after the war I happened to attend a concert by Yakov Flier and caught sight of Vigura with his wife. Vigura invited me to his house for supper, and when we had already sat down at the table, Flier himself arrived, sat at the piano and improvised on some of Vertinski melodies (at least, I think that is what they were). Voroshilov stayed at our house with his adjutants and with his bodyguard major Sakharov, as well as Shvernik, vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR I. P. Bardin; and Shirshov, Vakhrushev and Shakhurin came to dinner—perhaps you can remember them all! One thing I can say definitely, there was nobody from the intelligentsia, unless you count Bardin. At the end of the war a ‘trophy’ piano appeared in our house, but only once did anyone play it, and that was the leader of the department of arts, S. I. Gitelman, now director of Perm drama—when he was drunk and had his backside on the keyboard. But our cat still walks up and down it, and with one finger I try to put together the duke’s song ‘Heart of a beautiful girl.’

Part 1

27

During the war energetic evacuees from Leningrad (from the Kirov factory) made every effort to gain access to father and, flatteringly, enthused over his resemblance to Kirov himself; but whether this was of any benefit to them I do not know. But people involved in local cultural activities generally had no access to centres of power. It is true that I myself, on my own initiative, once organised a ‘meeting’ with the artists of the Drama theatre, helped by ‘advisers’ that included Artist of the Republic A. G. Shein and Artist of the pomsostav Volodya Makarov, my chess idol. I don’t know why, but Shein did not invite honoured artist M. N. Rosen-Sanin. He was an old man, and when he found out that he was left out, fell ill from worry about falling into disfavour. Father evidently didn’t know about the ‘reception’ and was taken by surprise when he returned home by eleven o’clock. (And there’s nothing wrong with that, but at the time it was quite normal for workers in responsible positions to arrive home from their offices at four in the morning). Among the guests was actor Bronshtein, who had played the part of Stalin (and for this purpose had been obliged to change his name to Bronyev—up to that time the full meaning of this had not dawned on me). Hungry, like all the other actors, Bronyev quickly ‘drank too much’, had problems with his stomach, and departed before everybody else, extremely disoriented and depressed. Although we managed to overlook the unhappy Rosen-Sanin, we certainly did not forget to ask the theatre Party organiser K. A. Guryeva, whom everybody in the company feared and hated. The thought would never have occurred to anybody, not to me, nor the troublesome Volodya Makarov, nor the independent Shein, that it was possible to do without her. (Incidentally, much later I worked with Guryeva in Frunze; she was Party organizer there as well, and had no time for kindly feelings.) Papa was friends with G. M. Nelepp in Moscow after the war, and on going to Byelrussia invited him to a farewell gathering. They say that asking a professional singer to perform among guests, is like asking a general ‘to do a little shooting’; but I am sure such niceties had nothing to do with the preference of those present for some bawdy songs, performed by the health minister Beletsky (the first soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre was granted the honour of accompanying him). 22. IGNORAMUS Before the time of searches and arrests I had kept a photograph taken by my school friend Zhenya Abramov—I, hair cropped close, dressed oddly, slovenly, with a Pioneer necktie and fastener, and with a book in my hands. I was so absorbed by the book that I could hardly put it down for a minute,

28

Part 1

even when we were out visiting. It was called ‘Ignoramus’ by Gleb Alyekhin. Its hero is a young workingman—also called Gleb—in the period of five-year plans and their sabotage; he falls in love with the daughter of oncenoble parents, Verochka, and marries her (love is evil!). Gleb suffers the poisonous mockery of his parents-in law. But at the factory there is a Party organiser, uncle Misha, with a profile like Kalinin’s, a ‘dynamiter and mother of the people’ who had been under sentence as a political prisoner before the revolution. Uncle Misha advises Gleb to read through all of Lenin’s works, and although it’s very difficult for him, he rises to the challenge. Having mastered Lenin, Gleb shames his evil relatives and at the same time helps to expose a foul and extremely skilled masked band of professional saboteurs. And he goes on to enjoy a bright future. Why did this rubbish entertain me? Probably because like others of my age I was in search of a catechism, and a hero able to overcome any obstacle. Nobody then had heard of Mark Twain’s Martin Idyen, but there are forty tomes of Lenin that are ours, or at least they do exist. There was another photograph, taken by my physics teacher Grigori Isaevich Shukhman (he later perished at the front). I am in a thoughtful pose, as though preparing for an exam. Sitting next to me are the son of a worker, Borisov, and the son of our German teacher, Borya Kiseliov—both are in smart jackets, but I am wearing a threadbare and crumpled ‘stalinka’ with patch pockets. (I was living a much better life than the others, but this is not the impression you get from the picture). I befriended the son of the head of the finance department of the obkom, Kolya Chernyshev, and another boy Ledka Gurvich. Both were a year above me in school. Gurvich could play chess blindfold, but I certainly couldn’t. I noticed that even the Chernychevs enjoyed a much lower standard of living than us; during the war Kolya’s mother came to ‘help’ tidy our house. Both families—the Chernyshevs and Gurvichs—came from Sverdlovsk; Chernyshev-senior was responsible for moving us in the special NKVD railway carriage. Although strangers in Perm, Kolka and Ledka both knew how to stand up for themselves, and could face down other children in the House of the Chekists. (This house is still so called even in the fifties, unofficially of course). My own ignorance was not noticed by anyone—we were all the same ignoramuses in the eyes of other children, parents or teachers—and universal delight with the mind and talents of father did not extend to myself. Although father, deprived in his own difficult childhood of books, and ‘The Barber of Seville’, and the rules of chess, was genuinely impressed by the extent of my knowledge. I listened distractedly to lessons at school, not believing that I would take them in and remember them, while in the seventh class fear of failure turned into a real mania—for whole days I would repeat, without giving it proper

Part 1

29

thought, a German phrase over and over again, so that afterwards I remembered it for the rest of my life. (But even worse than me was one boy, Yurka Yagovkin—and later on he exceeded me in drunkenness as well). Even in my favourite activity, chess, I did not want to think too hard about it, or to study and overcome its difficulties; I simply relished winning, and I suffered defeat painfully. Made anxious by all this mama invited a psychiatrist Professor E. M. Zalkind to come and see me. The professor considered my nervousness and tearfulness to be developmental, but warned that in my future life I ought to abstain from alcohol. As later events clearly demonstrated, this was very useful advice. 23. 22ND JUNE 1941 The thing I remember about the first day of the war was Kolka Chernyshev and I going along the street and meeting the school poet Nikolaev. It was not an unfriendly encounter, but we didn’t exchange formal greetings because he was a ‘traitor’ (rumours had gone around that he had called the Hitlerite army ‘the strongest in the world’). My father didn’t support my indignation, he wasn’t bloodthirsty. ‘There’s not much I can say about it, I haven’t given it much thought. People do love to exaggerate!’ Sometime later, when the Germans were getting close to Moscow, I myself began to mutter something about ‘the professionalism of the German headquarters staff’, but Chernyshev gave me a sharp rebuke. Sverdlovsk Drama cut their touring productions—there were not enough people. Shein hurriedly returned from Kiev; he had previously played the part of Lenin in a Sverdlovsk production. Now he appeared with two suitcases and his sixth wife A. M. Chuprinova. In spite of her massive frame she played the role of the ingenue in a Sverdlovsk musical comedy; and she spoke with a strong accent, unable to enunciate correctly the letters r or ch. The line: ‘I am dying as though I were a seagull in a green meadow, quivering for all to see’ provoked a storm of laughter in the hall. They urgently began productions of ‘Marsh Soldiers’ and ‘Professor Mamlok.’ The latter, with Shein taking a part, was staged in a theatre located in the far-off suburb of Motovilikhinsk, and trams went there infrequently. So members of the audience rushed to claim their galoshes before the final shot rang out that concludes the play. Shein lowered his revolver, fixed his eyes on the house and, full of fury, told them: ‘All right, I can wait’; and he continued to stand there until deathly silence was restored. Then the Jewish professor was allowed to settle his account with life.

30

Part 1

24. EVACUEES From Moscow came aunt Zina; there she had worked as secretary to Papanin, who was in charge of Main Northern Seaways, and later becoming secretary to the head of the Moscow Security Department, Major Potashnik. Her daughter, mama’s niece Larisa, was not as clever as the others, so she was given a job in a factory. But, having returned to Moscow, she also managed to get herself into the ‘organs’ of the NKVD. She earned twice as much as her engineer-husband, a shop superintendent, although she had learnt nothing and knew nothing. Even our neighbour Khalyamina knew how to do typing and shorthand. Larisa simply used to return home late—and that’s all. Once in the middle of 1942 I stayed the night with her in Pokrovka, and under oath of secrecy she told me that they had cancelled the November military parade because on the 6th a sub-machine gunner in Red Square had shot at Mikoyan’s car (but he was in another one). Fire was returned and the sniper finally blew himself up beside the monument to Minin and Pozharsky. At the beginning of the fifties they sacked Larisa from the ‘organs’ on account of her stupid habit of using her husband’s name, which at that time was Adolf Matveevich Kampel. Yevgeni Ivanovich Rotshild, aunt Zina’s husband, returned from the army and was unable to get work in Moscow, although at one time he was chairman (or had taken that role) at a meeting of medical therapists (photographs, that somehow avoided seizure, do confirm this). Two Komsomol friends of father, Sulitsky and Zalensky, were evacuated from Stalingrad. Zalensky lived with us until they gave him a room. Sulitsky was of a higher rank and was made one of the secretaries of the obkom. After the war they promoted him and he became a diplomat, although he was not keen on the idea and told Molotov that he would prefer Party work; to which Molotov retorted: ‘And am I not involved in Party work?’ Afterwards Sulitski got what he wanted and served for many years in the role of Party organiser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Until the war one of the secretaries of the Perm obkom was G. A. Denisov, who liked his drink and beat his temperamental wife; they afterwards made him ambassador to Hungary. The present editor of Pravda, Zimyanin, managed the Perm Agricultural Department. In the early days of the war I joined the ‘Fighter’ battalion attached to the aircraft factory, where they were getting people ready for the front without them giving up work. I was 15, and was proud of the battalion, its commissar, and our raikom secretary. I rapturously longed to go to the front. We studied the rifle, the ‘Maxim’, the PPSh (another kind of machine gun), although this didn’t help many people, including the commissar himself…

Part 1

31

Papa jealously kept his eye on things so that I did not stay in the town when they enlisted schoolchildren into building construction and loading work—in his eyes this was more important than the battalion, since there was nobody for us to ‘fight’. However, those hoping to become champions of military sabotage ended up clearing out cellars and building wooden huts for refugees. Still before the war the class teacher, without any discussion, ordered me to join the komsomol: ‘Write out an appplication.’ A quarrel with father was still possible, but he was undecided about this. Earlier I was a member of the student committee, and now I quickly become a committee member of the komsomol, and was nearly made komsomol organiser of the school. But this, I reflected, was not for me: I thought about Lyemkin, our komsomol organiser, evil, cross-eyed, with a greenish complexion—do I really want to be like him, for hours on end moralising with his comrades? I became so confused on this issue that I literally fell ill. It was useless discussing these questions at school, so I went for advice to the secretary of the raikom Maksimov (later on he would also be a diplomat) and begged him not to throw me out. Despising me in his heart, probably, he let me off the hook, and Igor Kuznetsov became the komsomol organiser—a fine chap, and a city champion in field and track athletics. (This was the student who shared a classroom bench with Svetlana Rimskaya). So at the appointed time it fell to him to shout out: ‘Long live comrade Stalin!’ and he delivered this so awkwardly that I could only be glad I wasn’t doing it myself. I understood well enough, politically, what was necessary, and what was acceptable, but for some reason I preferred a different kind of social activity—to declaim Gogol from the stage, to play Ostrovski’s character, Chatsky, or, if the worst came to the worst, an imprisoned commander under torture. In fact torture was easier to comprehend. Once a new history teacher came to our class, an old man from among the evacuees, and he began to tell us about Peter the Great’s reforms in such an interesting way that at the end of the lesson we gave him an ovation—I cannot remember this ever happening in school either before or afterwards. But very soon the old man disappeared; somebody said that his papers were not in order. At a meeting I sent from the hall a note to our director M. V. Bokovaya: ‘Why have they tidied away Sergei Petrovich?’ Maria Vlasovna erupted with terrible anger: ‘Who sent this hooliganish note?’ I kept silent. It was shaming to myself, and the teacher. But by what law had they removed him? If a teacher can express himself in the way he did, that is better than any textbook… Opera and ballet companies arrived from Leningrad as well as many writers, and at the end of the year Volf Messing came to visit along with his psychological experiments. My ‘chekist’ aunt Zina arranged for me to meet him. I arrived at his hotel, and on the second floor was shaken when I

32

Part 1

encountered a mysterious man with a high forehead and the face of the devil, who was waiting for me. I looked at him as though hypnotised. (On a completely different occasion I also experienced a trembling when I first set eyes on the writer Zavadsky. True his face seemed to be made from elephant skin, but my trembling was an expression of awe, not of fear). The ‘devil’ lead me upstairs and ushered me into a small room, where two ordinary-looking Jews were sitting. One of them—small, fidgety, with shifty eyes—was Messing himself, the magician (the ‘devil’ was just his personal assistant). The other was the conductor of the Kirov Opera, Sherman. Sherman was clearly depressed by the conversation that had just occurred. Messing was consoling him, saying that a more optimistic prognosis would have been pointless. (In two months Sherman’s father died; but whether or not this had anything to do with the blockade of Leningrad, it probably required no special gift to foresee unhappiness). Sherman left the room; and Messing, after recalling an event relating to aunt Zina and to a certain hen (no physical similarity with the sisters implied!), sat me down and began to roll a cigarette, folding the tobacco into some cut paper that was clearly too thick for the purpose. He offered me a piece of the same paper. ‘Write down four two-digit numbers.’ I wrote them down. He told me to cross out three of them. I crossed them out, not thinking about it for a second, in the full belief that what I had written and what I had crossed out was what I had consciously wanted to do. One number, say 76, remained. Messing suggested that I turn the list over, which I did—there on his hand was written the number 76. I glanced at him, bewildered, scared; Messing’s eyes widened momentarily, I was seized as though by an electric current. Then, in another of his experiments, I instructed him, mentally, to take from the clothes rack a winter opera hat, to put this on one of the beds in the room, and to cover it with all five cushions from two other beds, which he did, easily, lingering, it’s true, at the clothes rack. When, after some hesitation, he laid hold of a hat, I exclaimed: ‘That’s right.’ He sharply cut me short: ‘I know which is the right one.’ Afterwards he explained that there were lots of Russian words he didn’t know and that on the rack there were both summer and winter hats, and for this Shalyapin style hat, evidently, I myself did not have the exact name. From the lines on the palms of my hands he determined that I had a distrustful and independent nature; he expressed this so graphically and in such detail that I was shocked. ‘And you look at your stupidly dull teacher, and ask yourself: what can you possibly teach me…?’ Afterwards he predicted my future: ‘You will become a tragic actor with a rich inner life, like Mikhoels.’ Towards the end I was promised a long life. So far I have had 44 years—whether this is many or just a few I find it hard to say, but I don’t think I’ll live much longer. As an actor I am hardly

Part 1

33

known by anyone, and tragic roles I only live out in real life. As far as my independence is concerned, it can only be viewed in relation to the epoch in which I am fated to live. Soon Messing left our town, having promised that ‘the war would quickly end with our victory’; that was indeed the outcome, but only after three and a half years. In July of ‘41 a lecturer at our club confirmed that in another month German tanks would run out of petrol; and in November Stalin was saying: ‘Half a year, or maybe just one year more.’ After the meeting with Messing I began to spend time in the very same room where I was introduced to the ‘devil’. And the chekist S. F. Pivorarov stayed there, so that’s how I came to meet A. D’Aktil, I. Lukovsky, M. Kozadov, S. Rozenfeld and the composer L. A. Khodzha-Einatov. S. Rozenfeld wrote a book ‘Doctor Sergeev’, where he referred to my father speaking directly with Stalin on the telephone. In my time he was honoured by a conversation with the leader only once. This was in the autumn, evidently Iosif Vissarionovich couldn’t sleep. He said: ‘The fate of Moscow is in your hands.’ For the rest of the night father was unable to calm himself—he paced up and down in the flat until the morning repeating what he had heard. Twice I met and had a conversation with the writer Kaverin, but he was not close to the previously mentioned Bohemian literary set, although he was not hostile to it, as was M. Slonimsky for example. D’Aktil’s talent was especially striking; he composed verses while he was walking along or sitting down with a cup of tea. I have forgotten most of them, retaining only those that have helped to provide my daily bread. Pivovarov gave him a box of cigarettes on one occasion (‘Zephyr’ was the brand), and straight away Anatoli Adolfovich began to declaim: Smoke dissolves in the air, and I I too seem to melt away. Longed-for peace embraces me, The scent of roses… I dream… So far away… I, William Shakespeare. I don’t remember any more of it, the poem spins around a cigarette and a generous patron. Somewhere in this I can hear ‘March of the Enthusiasts’, probably written in haste on a window-sill somewhere, at a time when songs from the film ‘My Love’ and the jazz film ‘Steamboat’ were popular; a good half of the challenging lyrics were written by D’Aktil, and he is as wellknown as a translator.

34

Part 1

He died suddenly in the autumn of ’42 in Perm. As a versifier he could rival Marshak; he might even have been a second Marshak if he had got used to sitting behind a desk and adapting to political demands. Possibly circumstances are to blame for the fact that a real poet never emerged from the man himself; but people of the blockade remember the placards bearing his fourline stanzas: We are not handing Leningrad to the Fascists, Neither the squares, nor the gardens, nor the palaces! Nor the garden sacred to Pushkin, Nor the colonnades raised to the glory of old Russia! I managed, and quite often, to take part in chess sessions with Botvinnik, and once I even achieved a draw—he was playing on seventeen boards. This was the only draw and it was the last game of the session to finish—a modified variant of the Spanish game. At close quarters Botvinnik reminded me of Kaverin—rational behaviour, precepts about work (‘99% of genius consists of sweat’ etc). Botvinnik’s wife, Gayanye Davidovna, danced in the corps de ballet; she was a woman of outstanding beauty and unlimited devotion—the last, from my own experience, not so often met with among Armenians… Chatting with some of the people from Leningrad, I learnt about Gumilyev for the first time, and then also for the first time read ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ by Tsveig. I opened the book, and then—well, I just had to carry it around the whole day, the lines dancing before my eyes. I closed it at last, it was the middle of the night and I was shaken. Socialising with writers and composers did not always have good result of course. Walking with father along the banks of the Kama—once in a blue moon!—I suddenly shouted out to him hysterically, called him an ignoramus, and ran off. Another time we had a dispute about Lenin—both of us knew his writings only by hearsay, but I referred outrageously to the authority of the founder, father was convinced that Lenin could not have said such a thing; I made a row of it and we both had a long sulk which lasted right up to the time when I went off to the front. I was never clear who was right; in fact I don’t remember what the quarrel was really about. 25. COMMISSAR ZAVIROKHIN In the battalion everything depended on Commissar Zavirokhin, while at the same time the combatants were still working in the factory on 12-hour shifts. More than once I stood stock still from terror when the frail secretary of the raikom came out with an obscenity. (I don’t use their real names by the way;

Part 1

35

lovers of allegory and association can savour the made-up ones). Nobody doubted that Zavirokhin’s priority was to throw himself into any kind of hellish situation. Small, thin, he was the first to take off on his skis, first to stamp his boots at the beginning of a route march, but never the first to turn back in the homeward direction. There really are people like that, and I am pleased to be on friendly terms with Volodya Gershuni Zavirokhin—if they don’t kill him or let him rot in prison; he is the one, I am sure, who will die on the march, on the commando course—he’s ready for anything! Zavirokhin was uninterested in trivial things, he was coarse; when in an auditorium he was reading out a rousing telegram to the assembled troops, he added in conclusion: ‘Death to German-Fascist barbarians!’ Because he mispronounced the last word to sound more like the name Barbara there was hooting and laughter in the hall, but he went back to the text and repeated exactly what he had said. They waved from the presidium: go on—we’ll tell you later where you went wrong! Up to a point he was ruthless, with little respect for person. When his own mother decided on leaving the raikom to join a school he cursed her fiercely. But he couldn’t bring himself to raise his voice against my mother and father—that was something completely different. From time to time Zavirokhin lined us up and ordered: ‘Those wanting to go to the front—two paces forward!’ then gave a thorough roasting to those unhappy ones who had not made a move. He himself bombarded everyone with reports and letters about a transfer to the front (where only a miracle could save such a dueller with death. And miracles didn’t happen). From those around him he demanded that all should be as one with Dzerzhinski and the commissars of the Civil War—nothing less. For hours on end under his command I marched up and down in drill formation, and twice they took us for shooting practice to the obkom, where father sang: Listen, worker, The war has begun, Leave what you are doing, Get ready to march! The drill squad caught the spirit of the promise ‘to die as one’, and although father could only remember a few lines his rough tenor voice didn’t bother anyone. In the battalion were some who had finished their active service, but had not yet gone home; they sang ‘In the harbour,’ ‘Three tank men’ and ‘If there’s war tomorrow’. But some of the words seemed to have changed: where in my memory the words ‘and with an iron arm Voroshilov will lead us to victory’ a new opiate had been squeezed into the text:

36

Part 1

With us Stalin, our kinsman, Timoshenko—hero, With us our friend in battle—Voroshilov! So, in the approach to war, poets chopped off Voroshilov’s iron hand. 26. A FIGHTING FRIEND One morning shortly before the May Day holiday of ‘42 I woke up, and as I got out of bed my bare feet did not make contact with linoleum as expected—there beside my divan a carpet was laid. ‘What’s this?’ I asked in surprise. ‘Sh-sh… quiet! Father and I have been sleeping here—Voroshilov is in our bedroom!’ This was an unexpected visit, but apparently Voroshilov hated to spend the night in a railway carriage. I didn’t see him in the morning and went off to school, but we were honoured by his presence at supper—his face was a shade of chocolate, not at all like his portrait. Two tall, elderly colonels accompanied him, as well as a sleepy major wearing the diamond-shaped NKVD badge, like our Potashnik. To judge by their bearing, his aides de camp, who were from the Guards, were more like batmen; Sakharov, only a bodyguard, wore a badge corresponding to the rank of a major-general. He shadowed Voroshilov in case they tried to kill, especially to poison, him. The old women in the kitchen had prepared some dishes, but they were forbidden to bring them to the table; food was delivered from a restaurant, and Voroshilov would not get stuck into it until Sakharov had first taken a forkful, so that he would be obliged to die before the marshal. I didn’t drink at that time so I may be an unreliable witness to the amount people consumed, but when those remaining by the end of the meal were completely satiated with drink, grinning enthusiastically and ready to doze off, then, in contrast, it seemed that the marshal was completely restored to sobriety. He arrived exhausted, he had spent hours in railway carriages giving a roasting to officers of all ranks—gravediggers! They hadn’t been teaching soldiers how to entrench and camouflage themselves in the prescribed way! But now his look became harder, clearer and on his visage appeared a scornful and ironical grimace that could not be remotely associated with inebriation. To have a conversation with an ex-people’s commissar was awkward, but with grandma Fenya’s help the situation was saved. He asked grandmother (in Ukrainian): ‘You have not forgotten your Ukrainian language?’ ‘No, I have not forgotten it.’ ‘And your son?’

Part 1

37

‘He’s not Ukrainian any more…’ and so on. I attempted to direct the discussion towards more serious themes: ‘However much you send a singer such as Baturin to Italy, he still won’t come back a Shalyapin!’—and I mentioned that Shalyapin could blush or blanche to suit the course of the action, something that is not given to every actor. ‘And so what?’ replied Voroshilov. ‘Does it mean that you should wait with folded arms for genius to arrive? Shalyapin laboured over his talent! I know, I saw it myself!’ And he related how, diligently labouring, Shalyapin downed a glass of vodka before a performance. ‘Ask your grandmother: in all her life did she ever receive a single kopek for doing nothing?’ In the heat of the argument we began to raise our voices to one another, Voroshilov jumped up from the table rushed up to me and began to pummel me with his fists; I replied with the same, but he didn’t take offence and several times ran up to me again, either to put his arms around me or to give me a shove in a moment of indignation. Playing chess with the aides I settled the account within moments, but the marshal himself refused to play. ‘For the rest of your life you would be able to boast that you had won against Voroshilov!’—this might not have been such a red-letter day, he was no Botvinnik. That evening in town some professional actors organised an entertainment in honour of the marshal, while I had to go on patrol with my battalion to protect our illustrious guest. If that were not the case I would probably have sat next to the marshal at the concert in my new role as best friend. The following morning I formally applied to go to the front, but Voroshilov did not support my impulsive action and said that father was right in not allowing it. ‘I saw to it that Timur Frunze was able to go; then for the first few days he didn’t see any action. But I found out—that’s the way things happen—on the fifth day he was dead. Now they’re putting up a memorial to him, but what is a memorial compared to life—pah! It’s nonsense to make any comparison with life itself…’—and everybody headed off to the dacha where they began to play billiards. I had called my father’s intervention ‘plebeian’—for a long time the ball rolls around the edge of the pocket but in the end, unwillingly, drops in; Voroshilov at this point reacted to my ‘lordly’ observation: ‘Plebeian?! And what kind of person are you? Signor! So a plebeian answer doesn’t please you! You should be proud of your origins!’ And then he began an oration in which he explained that the Germans had come here in order to take away our people’s achievements—‘They want a scullery maid to remain a scullery maid while property owners and capitalists can live idle

38

Part 1

lives.’ From his words it followed that Hitler cannot forgive us for the pain that our Riabushinsky inflicted on them in 1917. I listened to this declamation with total conviction. (What about Kochetov and Shevtsov who even now are frightening us with predictions that merchants and industrialists will return and convert the residential accommodation of our people’s Lubyanka into a bank and a restaurant...?) When he was leaving I was the only person with whom he shook hands. Papa was not happy: ‘What is Voroshilov to you, just a boy? To be sparring with him like that…’ Rumours were beginning to circulate in the town that Gusarov’s son was off his head, had finally gone too far. But in a week Voroshilov had telephoned father and relayed greetings to me. Then papa felt relieved. 27. ANTSELOVICH The person who was really off his head—even I could not help noticing it— was the former political convict, distinguished trade unionist, and, later, people’s commissar of timber industries, Naum Markovich Antselovich. In his sixtieth year he tried to do a squatting dance: having taken a kitchen knife from his grandmother, clutched it with his teeth and had a go at the lezginka. He boasted that in a tsarist prison he had pissed on a screw’s head (he could have saved his joke for better times); and he used to shout at his aide, splashing him with saliva: ‘You are shit! What are you?!’ None of this deterred my father receiving him with full honour. Most of Antselovich’s associates vanished without trace or memory, but he went on his lively way and was even awarded a deputy’s badge of office. Father once related a stupid anti-Semitic joke to Antselovich. I was terribly embarrassed and afterwards, in private, tried to bring papa to his senses, to persuade him that this was ugly behaviour. He retorted: ‘What does it matter to you? Antselovich, he’s a Pole.’ Afterwards I understood that, with his particular kind of anti-Semitism, father didn’t think of his Jewish friends as being really Jewish. About the director of the Motovilikhinski artillery plant, Bykhovski, he said: ‘Abram Isaich? We Russians have a lot to learn from him! He’s one of us!’ But he wouldn’t take a Jew onto his board of management for anything. (Gitelman, the man who ‘played’ the piano with his backside on the keyboard, was, without a doubt, also ‘one of us’). Perhaps it was under Antselovich’s influence that father changed his decision not to let me to go to the front (from the time of Voroshilov’s departure not more than two months had passed). By Cossack custom (which father could know about only by hearsay) they made a uniform for me, and gave me a revolver, shoulder belt and submachine gun—the only thing they failed to

Part 1

39

lavish on me was a horse. Antselovich was still staying with his wife among the evacuees, but at the same time he managed to win something for the 130th infantry division (later of the Guards): he wrote on a form that I was a useful political activist, and then took me away with him. At first I lived in Moscow, in his flat in the House of Government complex (Dopre as they abbreviate it), where there was a cinema, called ‘The Shockworker,’ and where there is now even a Theatre of Varieties. I learnt that the majority of Soviet citizens interpret the abbreviation Dopre not as the House of Government but as the House of Imprisonment Before Trial. Later I became aware that both meanings of the abbreviation were well known to the occupants—there was scarcely a flat where arrests and searches had not taken place. Antselovich was an almost uniquely lucky man. In Antselovich’s library I ‘borrowed’ two books—Stanislavsky’s ‘Concerning the work of the actor in transcending himself’ and a tome of Nadson’s. And although I managed to lose everything later on, including my submachine gun and Komsomol card, Stanislavsky travelled with me along all the roads and through all the guardrooms unscathed, even in the time of the searches—and it’s with me now on a shelf in my room. Antselovich, knowing that I had purloined the books, wasn’t angry; he only reproached me for not asking him, and said he would have signed them for me. But I, in my youthful years didn’t want even Laskera to add his donor’s inscription; Stanislavsky himself for five years up to that time inscribed nothing, but I don’t know what can be said about Nadson. I soon had to leave the flat in the House of Government as two dubious young girls had also taken up residence there and were making a nuisance of themselves. Antselovich angrily confronted them: ‘I am also a human being! So what about it?!’ I was scared, and moved over to a room in aunt Zina’s place on Arbat. In Moscow I spent a month in idle chatter. At the only theatre still working in the city I went to one particular production just to see with my own eyes the legendary Valya Serova—a unique woman out of two hundred million ordinary people to whom adulatory verses were dedicated. Up to then I had only seen her in the film ‘Spring Stream’. But here, at an outpost of the Moscow Arts Theatre, they were staging ‘Russian People’. Arzhanov played Safronov; D. N. Orlov, Globa; R. Ya. Plyatt, Vasin—then all unknown names, except for Serova playing Valya. Neither she herself nor her acting produced in me any great impression, so, at the end of the play when some of the audience were making a dash towards the footlights, I remained standing by my seat politely clapping. And then she noticed the solitary soldier in the stalls, moustacheless but wearing a revolver. She smiled tenderly-patriotically, and made a deep, deep bow down to the floor, honouring soldiers at war. From that moment right up to joining my unit I was on duty at the theatre door. Serova every time noticed me and smiled, but one day a car came along

40

Part 1

and I could see through the rear window she and Simonov kissing. I sold my ticket and spent the whole evening disconsolately wandering the streets… I tried once more, during the day, to call on Antselovich, but I could feel the presence of the two girls. I found him dishevelled, with a flabby face, in a dressing gown; bottles heaped up on the table. He tried to talk me into joining his drinking bout, but I quickly took my leave of him and went back to Arbat. 28. TO THE FRONT Finally, in August with a column of lorries (including a trade union delegation in smaller vehicles led by Klavdia Ivanovna Nikolaevna) we were moved forward to the northwestern front. I was assigned a place in the back of a lorry, and although it was still summer I learned what it was to freeze. We went through Kalinin—abandoned houses, the inhabitants only rarely seen in the town’s outskirts; afterwards, similarly, Torzhok and Ostashkov. We spent the nights in the vehicles; only once on our journey did we stay in a two-storey house where an old man and an old woman were living, accustomed to darkness and cockroaches. Among the members of the delegation was a beautiful brunette with a lustreless face in a well-fitting overcoat made from military broadcloth. The officers hung around and cheerfully flirted with her. Not one person paid me any attention, or exchanged words with me. I wanted to sing some of Trike’s couplets from Onegin but they only laughed at me—they said I didn’t have either the voice or the ear. I realised that here were people who lacked any kind of understanding. Zina Petrova was left behind in Perm. Although in Moscow I kept my vigil at the theatre every evening, waiting with trepidation for a fleeting smile from Serova, there was always a little photograph of Zina carefully tucked away in a little pocket of mine. But here on the journey I even forgot about Zina. And afterwards, having returned to Perm on leave, not once did I call on her. How could I be forgiven! Not shamed by the presence of mother I sang with tears in my eyes: ‘I will part from Mama more easily…’ (With my mama I always parted from her in a light and manly way, as if unmindful that this could be the last farewell…) 29. THE FRONT I was never in forward units at the time of battle; I worked in a support group attached to headquarters, where dealing with vast masses of lice seemed almost as difficult as fighting the Germans. Before we had even managed to get through to our division, we already knew that Masha Polivanova and Natasha Kovshova, two cooks from Mos-

Part 1

41

cow and posted as snipers, had perished. The Germans bayoneted one of them, the other shot herself. In order to award them posthumously the political department sent material to Moscow and, after further supporting material had been submitted, they conferred on them the title Heroes of the Soviet Union. The front was quiet—nothing moved, but the Germans had broken through towards the Volga and into the Caucasus; and we had to ‘deflect’ them—at a cost of unbelievable and, as afterwards it became clear, entirely unjustified sacrifices. One of our tasks was to cut the neck of the Demianski bulge, which was already being swept by our fire, so that the Germans were forced to airlift in supplies for their surrounded units. Just as we were preparing to close the gap, which was several hundred metres wide, the Germans threw in airpower and bombarded us for days. I crept under a plank bed in a dugout and read Maupassant until I fell asleep (don’t imagine that the others at this time were ceaselessly labouring—each time the scream of a shell was heard, and this went on endlessly, they all crashed into each other in their efforts to get down onto the floor). Towards evening I woke up, crept out of my shelter and offered my comrades copies of the divisional newspaper (to which I was attached) and suggested a meal. Around me were figures with grey, tormented faces coated in grime. They had issued me with a mess-tin and I went to get some soup. Seeing me the cook mockingly shouted out: ‘Well, hero, d’you know what war’s like now?’ Before I could say anything he was on the ground in an attitude that was extremely unnatural for an adult. And only then did I hear the shriek of a dive-bomber. On that day the divisional supplies officer and his female secretary were killed. I remember that officer; he was a young man, plumpish who always put several lumps of sugar into his tea. I quickly got used to the fact that there is no salvation from a direct hit— and if a single piece of shrapnel doesn’t kill you, then four layers of timber of the dugout roof collapsing on you might do the trick. So I decided there was no point in getting into a panic. Before the beginning of the bombardment, I played chess with the officer in command of divisional communications; but then we came under mortar fire. More experienced he immediately grabbed his holster and ran into the dugout, while I collected the chess pieces, folded the board and, ashamed to run, walked at an ordinary pace. The whistle of the mortar shells, I won’t hide it, frightened me, but on no account was I prepared to betray my fear to the older people around me. I did finally get used to bombardment; but one day I flopped to the ground, not like everybody else, face down, but on my back—and I saw that a plane was flying above us with red stars on it. ‘Ours, ours!’ I yelled and jumped up, forgetting any dignity.

42

Part 1

The others also sprang up, shouted out and threw their caps in the air—it was as though experienced soldiers didn’t often get to see aircraft with stars… With all the courage and contempt of death that I had, however, I was never straining to be in action. Around me I observed neither enthusiasm nor mass heroism, people saw what each person, and only he, could do, as he tried to settle himself in the second echelon; I didn’t feel the slightest need to be cleverer than the others. The divisional newspaper ‘Forward, to the West!’ was on the whole put together more by the frontline soldiers than by the separate editorial staff, which was directed by V. N. Knushevitsky. He wanted me to join his group, but headquarters did not agree, probably making the reasonable assumption that in that position I would cease to look like a soldier. After massive bombing the Germans threw at our sector several SS divisions; our units fell back in a panic and the front was broken; even the second echelon was feeding itself on dry crusts, and our editorial staff survived by a miracle. Now we were moving forward again—but of course not to the west, but towards the dawn, after terror had driven us from our positions several hours earlier. When the sun rose, at the place where our vans were recently standing, gaped enormous craters from land mines. Getting out of there we suddenly came across a cow in some woodland. God knows where she had come from but she was peacefully nibbling grass in a clearing and giving little waves of her tail. A Junkers noticed her from above—the poor creature was not expected to be hiding in a wood—it dived and dropped bombs. The cow began to rush about, the German gained height, turned and dived again—this time the target was eliminated. Soviet propagandists in the first year of the war, of the Kirsanovaia type, would have explained this incident thus: German workers, our brothers, try to drop their bombs on non-military objectives. We were exhausted; it did not occur to us to make use of the fresh meat— a gift from German workers. We were so frightened of falling into German soup that we didn’t feel any hunger. 30. GERMAN LEAFLETS Anatoli Kuznetsov in ‘Babi Yar’ has already described them. I also remember these ‘verses’: Strike to the left, strike to the right, The face of a commissar or of a Yid – Both just ask to be hit by a brick.

Part 1

43

There was no reason for me to be particularly interested in them, even though my life revolved around the political department; but when necessity drove me to squat under a bush, the leaflets came in useful. And because a craving arose to read something for a few minutes, without any ulterior motive, I did become acquainted with their content, which typically began: ‘to those who can be guided by the mindless idealist Stalin and the Jews Mekhlis and Lozovsky…’ Kaganovich for some reason wasn’t mentioned, probably they thought the name was too obvious. I wrote a feature in our newspaper, in the style of Ehrenburg, called ‘Reflections on captured submachine guns.’ I speculated on the subsequent fate of German submachine guns—‘will they remain in the stores, will they be melted down or will they be used in battle again…?’ A. A. Poletaev, editor of the paper (and previously of ‘Komsomolskaia Pravda’) allowed this phrase; but they drew attention to it in the political department—they considered that I was hinting at future conflict with our allies. I fear that even now I am hardly a master of the insubstantial art of hinting, and from that time and for a long time afterwards I didn’t think to do any more hinting—either by word of mouth or in my writing. True, they didn’t begin to persecute me; but Poletaev, an old newspaper boss, had to keep tuned in to communist morality, and this issue of the paper was scrapped; so the soldiers, who were neither for nor against anything in particular, were deprived of their usual ration of paper for rolling cigarettes. Somewhere in German occupied territory there was a partisan resistance group, but its commander, colonel Tuzhikov, operated on our side of the front line—in order to avoid excessive risk to his person. His wife lived in Perm, and, having provided me with partisan documents, he asked me to obtain permission from the authorities to take a parcel to her—chocolate, butter, soap and similar valuable items. At that time we occupied the area of the Demiansky bulge, from which the Germans were successfully expelled, although literally thousands of our troops lay down their lives for each metre of that throat, which we were expected to sever. The Germans left behind lots of newspapers, and I cut out some images of the ‘Führer’, Mussolini and Goering; apart from that I picked up two German decorations and I was hoping to take these home with me for their interest. While I slept Tuzhikov dropped my treasures into the stove. He himself was sending his father ‘for his information’ a large packet of Vlasov newspapers but he wouldn’t let me look through them. I was so outraged by this lack of trust and by his daring to destroy my collection that on the night before my departure I could scarcely sleep. So, finding myself in a heated railway carriage, I quickly dozed off. When I woke up I discovered that someone had taken my wallet with all my documents. But Tuzhikov’s parcel remained, intact. Not letting it out of my hand I set off for the commandant’s office in Bologom. Here for the first time in my life I was subjected to a

44

Part 1

search—they even cut through a bar soap. At the end of a long table sat the ‘Smersh’ representative; now he had to search my belongings. As he inspected the bulky package of Vlasov newspapers I remembered how in the front-line they had shot a soldier: they took him out of the echelon—he cried out—they led him behind the stores building, and they fired twice. The shouting stopped. The man from Smersh took the package in his hands and turned it over— on the first page was a portrait of Vlasov, very similar to a Japanese face, in a general’s uniform and wearing glasses. He held out the pile of papers. ‘Well, the newspapers will come in handy for you.’ (The newspaper was called ‘For the Motherland!’ as was our front-line paper, but this cretin probably supposed that the Vlasov paper could only be called ‘For the Ruin of the Motherland!’). Finding myself in some kind of lobby, I there and then pushed the packet of newspapers behind the high back of a divan—during the course of the search I had become a much wiser person and I didn’t want to put my fate to any further test. More important than anything else was the fact that it is unacceptable for German leaflets to become a subject for discussion, although they certainly didn’t confuse me; I took the world as I found it… They sent me back to my unit. A sergeant of some kind turned up in Bologom and glued himself to me for several days. While they ascertained our identities, I fed and watered him, while he in turn fawned on me, and sang in a heartrending way: For the motherland, for Stalin I fall across my machine gun… To an ordinary person his behaviour might have seemed extremely suspicious; but I was the only son of a deputy and thus used to all kinds of servility, and I did not see anything strange. It ended when he robbed me of all I possessed and disappeared. Fortunately some character, for a loaf of bread, took it upon himself to provide me with a saving reference. In this document it was stated that I was such and such a person and that I was ‘found unconscious, suffering an attack of cardiac asthma.’ This remarkable piece of paper helped me to renew fairly easily my komsomol card, and to avoid many other problems; but most importantly it authorised two weeks of home leave. Having finally reached my father’s house after all these adventures I slept twelve hours a day, and my return to the army in the field was put off by a month. I badly needed rest. True, the need of other soldiers was just as great, but their parents did not have the opportunities that were open to my papa.

Part 1

45

31. DON’T BE A WHITE CROW! - my father exhorted me, seeing me off to the front; but for the first few days I certainly felt like one, mainly because I didn’t drink and I didn’t smoke. They posted me to a radio communications unit and a sergeant was seconded to me who taught me the Morse code. My training progressed successfully and, wanting to show my tutor gratitude, I gave him my ‘narcotic ration’ of vodka. One day non-commissioned officer Kriachkov—with a face of a eunuch and shifty eyes and a thin tenor voice, who loved to sing to guitar accompaniment—spotted where the vodka was going and told me: ‘Either drink it yourself or give it to me—it’s not here for cultivating favourites!’ I didn’t want to give my vodka to this scoundrel, so I decided to drink it myself. After the first glass I began to dance, to declaim, to sing with my voice at full throttle, and after a while I got the whole platoon laughing. The state of joyous arousal was repeated several times after subsequent drinking sessions, but I quickly became inured to it, ceased to be aware of anything, apart from a beautiful feeling of heat in my veins. I was proud that I could out-drink anybody—the others would drop off to sleep in the snow while I stayed in complete command of myself. Smoking was something else that I was unprepared for, and as a nonsmoker I received sweets in place of tobacco. But when I began to work as a radio operator I had to go on watch every four hours. This regime quickly resulted in insomnia and one day I tried smoking, it turned out to be a splendid soporific—I slept like a dead man. True, after a time tobacco ceased to help me with insomnia, but as a result I soon became a smoker as well as a drinker. On one occasion they ordered me to sew up my pockets, I refused to obey: ‘I am not in military school for you!’—and was given five days’ detention. ‘There are some fine soldiers that come out of military school and you are not one of them!’ Another time, having spent the whole evening chatting up the girls in the village, I fell asleep at my post and received another ten days’ detention. For three days of this I was locked up in the bath house, though I don’t remember much about it; only that by the light of an oil lamp I tried to read. Then the n.c.o. came in, overturned the lamp with his boot and grabbed the book from my hands (perhaps I was reading ‘Hamlet’ at the time…) I served the last two years at a place called Kubinka-Polushkino-Vasilevskoe seventy kilometres from Moscow—in the headquarters of the first radio intelligence brigade ‘for special assignments’. There I became a confirmed drinker and a large part of the time I spent in the guard-room. I drank on an empty stomach, eating none of the things that were sent to me from home—pastries, chocolate, butter—which I exchanged for vodka from the officers.

46

Part 1

Once they found a bed sheet among my belongings—it was official issue and I had hidden it among some books. ‘Who stole it?’ ‘I did.’ ‘Who from?’ ‘I don’t remember… perhaps it was from Lipshits… or Merzlov…’ They didn’t believe me and decided that I was covering up for somebody. To put it briefly, the issue went before a tribunal. But didn’t I usefully run errands to Perm for them? And in general what was the point of quarrelling with Gusarov over trivialities? Father arrived in order to take me to Moscow for a banquet in honour of our victory, and of course they gave me leave of absence. Victory was celebrated by such a grandiose alcoholic binge that, sitting in the car, I protested: ‘I will be the first to say to the Germans you are Communists… And I will help grease the rope to hang them with…’ (Evidently I was not distinctly aware at that moment of who really was the victor). Father ordered the car to stop; he dragged me out and wanted to punch me in the face, but I defended myself and we ended up taking turns at flying into the ditch beside the road—now him, now me. The authorities decided to extricate themselves from an unpleasant situation and put me at the ‘disposal of the local military enlistment office’; I was sent back home in other words. Together with Sergeant Vitia Merzlov I was still able to outwit the senior n.c.o., and to drink the proceeds of a German watch that I won from Sergeant Lurie (he arrived from the occupied zone, where it was possible to enrich oneself—not only with watches). Later I heard they demoted Merzlov; up to this time I was ‘a junior sergeant in reserve.’ 32. MY UNIVERSITIES Although my education until then amounted only to nine years of schooling, as a demobilised soldier they accepted me at university. Of course the ‘request’ of the First Secretary of the obkom did not stand in the way of this. I went into the philological faculty, but the teachers apparently didn’t believe that I actually needed any more knowledge. The only people who really attended to their duties were a German woman teacher and the linguist and Latinist N. P. Obnorsky (the elder brother of the academician). To them I am indebted for gaining some understanding of German and Latin. But in order to get into university I still had to sit an external exam in order to obtain a school-leaving certificate. In the physics paper I was tripped up by Newton’s binomial theorem. Knowing nothing about binomial or Newton I waited until the examiner left the room and went over to Rector

Part 1

47

Mertslin’s little office—the Rector had a luxuriant, academic beard. Having shown him my student card, I asked him to elucidate the question. Mertslin did elucidate the question, but in Latin unfortunately. I then had to return to the examination room, look up a textbook, copy some of the text and read it out to the examiner. He patiently listened, didn’t ask me a single question and gave me a mark of four (don’t think that I was saddened by my exclusion from the top grade of five; in our group of external students nobody could congratulate themselves on the extent of their knowledge; but everyone successfully gained their certificate). The following year I moved to Moscow University and entered the history faculty. (In Perm I had already migrated from the philologists to the historians at my father’s behest). In one group I found myself studying alongside the son of the procurator Zhora Bideenishvili, and if in my certificate grade fours were sprinkled with a few threes, Zhora’s was distinguished by straight fives. In the first session he didn’t pass a single subject, while I, until I went to the Theatre School, received a grant for the whole year (although undoubtedly there were people who needed one more than I did. Only at the end of his second year was Makh, an excellent all-rounder, granted the official status of grant-aided student). Zhora, with a sob story, went to visit my mama, whom for some reason he used to address as duchess Alekseevna, and said that she was a second mother to him; then he took five hundred roubles from her for an air ticket, playing the same trick as my fellow traveller from Gorky. About that time we had a final review lecture in one of the big auditoria, either the ‘Leninsky’ or the ‘Communist’. My neighbour nudged me and whispered: ‘Stalin’s daughter is sitting behind you.’ I turned and saw a ginger-haired plain-faced girl with cold, familiar, frightened eyes… 33. A SITUATION Returned from the army, where they taught me to respect those above me by addressing them with their title, and generally to know my place in the order of things, I was acutely aware of my particular situation in Perm. A girl made her appearance, with whom I practiced kissing and other skills, and with relief learned that she was familiar with my own environment, and that I didn’t have to pull back a curtain to reveal the ‘Communist’ way of life—she was the daughter of a leading member of the obltorgotdelom and knew very well what was what. I had some student friends—chess-player Yura Filatov and a girl who was in love with me, Ira Grinblat; but their presence I often found burdensome and I did my best to avoid them. Ira was jealous of my relationship with the nomenklatura girl Zhenya, and apart from that I began to flirt with a ballerina, Chudinskaya; I sent her

48

Part 1

bouquets and chocolates. But there was a soloist in the ballet company who was in love with her. Instead of giving me a punch and driving me from the wings of the stage, he completely lost his head and panicked. Ira obligingly brought me photographs of Chudinskaya, I wrote on them loving messages and sent them off with flowers, and the ballerina was evidently ready to swap her Apollo for a pale clumsy youth. I didn’t have to defend my rights with my fists; behind me stood something which I tried casually not to notice: I was becoming arrogant. One day on a tram the conductress gave me a shove, and, not thinking much about it, I replied in kind. The tram stopped, a militiaman came up, I quietly handed him my passport, and began to move away. ‘Stop, or it will be the worse for you!’ he shouted after me, but of course I did not look back. The next day I called in at the oblast militia department to see Skripnik, had a game of billiards, and, among other things collected my passport. Nobody said a word about the ill-starred tram. I was given a lot of rope: I swore at the senior officers of the militia, called them amateurs—always without any comeback. Throughout the war years a house materialised for us—with a steam bath, boiler-room, outbuildings and a sentry box for the militia. There was another occasion when I woke up in the militia department, and, convinced that with mother’s underhand plotting they had locked me in the steam bath, I shouted so much to the militiaman, that there and then, without a murmur, he gave me back my documents—together with a heap of money. This I used to buy an accordion that had been donated to the MVD, and he saw me off the premises with a cheery farewell. Having appeared on the street with only one boot on my feet I realised that this was not ‘my’ militiaman, the one who had been protecting me at home, and that perhaps I had been making a hullabaloo for nothing. Yura Filatov, who had been detained with me, spent several days in the department and his mother went out of her mind with worry; while I didn’t even think about the friend who might have needed rescue. That is, I simply assumed he had also returned home long ago. Surely our government can’t treat people so badly? About that time I began to be haunted by nightmares. It seemed as though somebody was suffocating me; and it was not just anybody, it was my own father. ‘So, Soviet power doesn’t please you, you scum!’ he shouted with a strange voice, while mama tried to pull him away. It seemed that father, in reality, had stumbled upon our almanac of frontline writing—Volodya Zamkov and Misha Serov and I had the idea of copying out some pieces of verse and prose as well as commentaries on paintings, the theatre and literature. Zamkov bound the album and on the cover

Part 1

49

sketched a splendid horse’s head. The almanac was called ‘The Temple of the Feather’d Jade’. True, one of the sections was headed ‘Ensemble of antiSoviet song and dance’, but this was for rhetorical effect, we simply copied some inoffensive epigrams and jokes: ‘They listened, passed a resolution and robbed us’. Once I looked at a bust of Lenin and made a pun: ‘Lenin—this is a head.’ Above the bust hung a portrait of Marshal Stalin (by the now honoured artist, Professor Zamkov), which gave Misha Serov the opportunity to continue in the style of those humorous story writers Ilfa and Petrov: ‘Stalin: this is bigger than a head, this is a hat’—a witticism that was quickly jotted down. The album opened with a hymn written by Misha Serov: We are the true knights of the Feather’d Jade, We are the servants, the adorers of art: We are the followers of what is great and holy, And for us there is nothing more sacred! Begone forever accursed banality! Triteness and sloth we sweep from the road. Suffering so long, the Feather’d Jade Again will be called the Wingèd Horse! We let nobody else into our secret; that is until I left the army, by which time Zamkov and Serov had long been demobilised. Zamkov later went on to work as an artist on the film ‘The Oath’. Impetuous papa realised he could not silence me (and didn’t know what surprises I had in store for him!) but he still tore into the evil of our mild almanac—although up to then I did not comprehend which parts of it were truly anti-Soviet. In the army, angered by the wildness and coarseness of its manners, I consoled myself that war, however great the anguish, does not go on forever—at some point it comes to an end. As for those who actually like warfare, well, let them continue to serve, but I will go the civilian way—I will find human dignity, I will ask all kinds of questions and I will express my point of view. True, when I was still in the army I had thought of sending off a telegram of congratulations to England—on the victory of the Labour Party and Attlee in the election—and only one thing held me back: we had sinister people sitting in the post office on Vasilevsky Street for whom sending an international telegram was simply unthinkable. But here, finding myself at home at last, I could reflect with pleasure that those around me did indeed think of themselves as attentive and courteous people. Father was a candidate member in the House of Deputies and arrived at the university, where I was studying, to make a speech at a pre-election

50

Part 1

meeting. He spoke heatedly and convincingly, he was a passionate orator, and both before and after the speech he was given a standing ovation. I applauded with everybody else, although I was confused: when Professor Zakharov, the rector Martslin and even academician Tarlye, made speeches in the obkom in 1942 none of them was similarly rewarded, although in this kind of thing they would have been no more stupid than my father, who had a few newspaper articles published, but nothing more. On the day of the elections I got up before dawn. I had to vote as early as possible in order to be effective in my home district—I was an agitator. Many people, sleepy, with grey faces, hurried to vote, although it was still quite dark, and I could not understand where these people were going in such a hurry: were they all agitators perhaps? Professor Bogoliubov related how in one district a very abnormal person decided to become an independent candidate on his own account, and it took a long time to prevail on him to withdraw. Bogoliubov was incensed by this wild and insolent behaviour. But in general the mass of people were disciplined, restrained, even meek, but for some reason I didn’t want to question what this was due to, and at what price. I was twenty years old, for the first time in my life I had a girlfriend, we kissed each other at every street corner, and I dressed to shock: I had an American leather jacket, which came with accoutrements that might have belonged to a chauffeur in a ‘Studebaker’. The poverty of other students didn’t worry me, and if I happened to catch a scowling look I assumed it was due to the extravagance and provocative manners of my reckless loved one. 34. A PASS TO ALL LOCATIONS In the summer of 1946 we all returned to Moscow. Since the spring Papa had been appointed Inspector of the Central Committee (A new post. When I asked him what it meant father proudly explained: ‘Private representative of Stalin’). They gave him a flat in Starokoniushenni Street, previously occupied by N. S. Patolichev. We spent the summer in a dacha in Pushkino— Zhavoronkov and Zadionchenko occupied the ground floor, while on the floor above, apart from us, the academician G. Aleksandrov, who was on leave, should have been staying, but for some reason did not once come there. So it was just the two of us, father and I, while mama remained in Moscow. In one of the dachas lived an elderly recluse. He spoke to nobody—just took his meals in the communal restaurant and went out by himself. I suggested a game of chess, he agreed and I won. I wanted to get to know who my opponent was, and I asked my father: ‘He is an honoured old man’ explained papa when we were in the presence of Suslov, as well as two

Part 1

51

Leningraders Polkov and Shtykov, both of whom were later shot—‘he was Lenin’s bodyguard.’ One winter’s day after lectures when I was out walking with my fellow history students we came across this meritorious old man in Mokhovaia Street. I greeted him and we even exchanged a few words about the weather and our health. ‘Do you know who you were talking to?’ asked one of my friends. ‘He was a member of the Government Duma in the Bolshevist faction—Matvei Konstantinovich Muranov! His overcoat is hanging up in the Museum of the Revolution!’ So that’s it, I thought; but pondering this theme later I realised that a generation of new leaders had appeared, for whom the whole history of the Bolshevik putsch mainly consisted of protecting Lenin and Stalin. One day—I am returning to our life in the Central Committee dachas— father suggested that we go for a stroll in the woods before breakfast, instead of morning exercises, and all of a sudden he said: ‘Sit down, son, and let’s have a talk. Mama is insisting that I arrange a propiska for her to live in Sokol, she doesn’t want to continue living with grandmother, but I am not going to throw out my own mother. So you’ve got to decide where you are going to live.’ I said I wanted to live with him. All the same at the end of the summer Mama came to us at the dacha, stayed a short while and then, as she was getting ready to go back, suddenly threw at me with a sobbing voice: ‘You’ve exchanged your mother just for a motor car and vodka!’ I was mortified, tried to console her as much as I could, and assured her that I had changed my mind and would go and live with her. So it turned out that she and I returned to our old flat in Sokol, in spite of the fact that father had given me a permit for Starokoniushenni. As far as the car was concerned, although I had abandoned father, I did often make use of it. At that time in Moscow there were not more than thirty or forty ZIS-110s, basically for the Politburo to run around in, but Father didn’t forget to send produce to us in Sokol with one of the chauffeurs—he himself never made an appearance… As second in importance in the ranking of inspectors, papa wounded Khrushchev’s pride by delivering a critical report at a meeting. They encountered one another there, and Nikita asked father what the head on his shoulders was supposed to be for? Father stood his ground, and parried: ‘Not just for wearing a hat!’ He was not shot; in fact he continued to occupy his high position. Khrushchev had called papa a rat from behind the lines. But, after meeting chekist officials, he quietly went up to father, squeezed his hand and said that not for fifteen years had anything like this happened. (A year later Kaganovich replaced Khrushchev). Buoyed up by success Papa got it into that head of his to quarrel with Bagirov, but here he burned his fingers. When Father began to blame Bagi-

52

Part 1

rov for ‘un-Party’ behaviour and similar shortcomings, the latter simply went to a government telephone and said to Stalin: ‘Listen, Iosif, get this fool off my back.’ They didn’t get rid of papa, but they put him in his place—he could not imagine that anyone existed who could talk to Stalin in this familiar fashion. After such a shock father got drunk back at the dacha, flung the empty bottles into a flower bed under the window and in despair went on repeating the s... word. That same summer father took me to a festival of physical culture at the ‘Dynamo’ Stadium. I recognised Gotvald—he had red cheeks and puffed away contentedly on a pipe, but Massarik looked to me like an older Beria; it was evident that the grandiose mass event did not at all please him. His face expressed suffering, and I even thought: ‘Is Lavrenti Pavlovich going the same way as Shcherbakov?’ When later I read in the paper that Massarik had thrown himself out of a window I was not at all surprised. On the tribune young people in grey civilian clothes suddenly slid into view, then they went off and Stalin appeared—greying, in full-dress uniform; alone, he slowly went up to the barrier and stopped, without a smile or a gesture. The stadium roared. I also bellowed, with a strange feeling of delight that I was unable to compare with any other. But at the same time, as though looking at myself from the outside, I was aware of a doubt: was I really shouting like this? And I couldn’t help noticing Stalin’s constantly shifting eyes… In the second half of the match ‘Dynamo’ defeated the Yugoslav team ‘Partisan’ by a small margin. All summer at the dachas we played billiards; my partner was Popkov. Until then I had only seen him in a newsreel, where he looked lean and tall, but in life he was dark-haired, of below average height and struck ‘his’ ball better than everybody else. They used to say that Leningraders trained with masters of the game—and the losers bring champagne for the winners. Certainly Muscovites were a long way behind. One day we played doubles— Suslov with his son against papa and me. I don’t remember who won, but I do remember how everyone became animated when they only brought in beer with Caspian roach (while in the dining room we were short of nothing). Who will say that our leaders are deprived of a lively connection with nature! Father was nervous when anyone asked him: ‘Why don’t you bring your wife over here?’ Especially pestering was one Kriukov (Department of Agricultural Administration). It was probably because of him that papa kept me close in order to keep up the appearance of a family man. Kriukov was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and he had a permit on which was written in big sloping letters: ‘Pass to all locations’; however I do not remember if he ever called in at the Mausoleum. Evidently there was an unwritten law about that.

Part 1

53

One day papa and I watched a football match at the ‘Dynamo’ Stadium. Kaganovich was sitting alone in the government box. I began to tease father saying that he would be thought weak if he were to sit next to him. He stood up without a word, went up close to the box and from there threw me a triumphant glance; ‘Well, do you see this?’ I observed that he did not greet Kaganovich; probably he had decided that the senior of the two had the privilege of noticing or not noticing his comrade-in-arms, but Kaganovich, I think, did not suffer from such delicacy of manner. 35. MISTAKES In the spring of 1947 father went off to take Belorussia. P. K. Ponomarenko for some time remained chairman of the Soviet of Ministries, and they moved him to Moscow. But in 1950 they sent him back to Belorussia as the Inspector. As a result of this, blunders by both men became exposed. Whereupon they removed papa. Father’s first mistake, even before he managed to leave Moscow, was that he invited one of Beria’s deputies General N. S. Sazykin, who had not been approved of, to be a minister of the KGB—Beria’s nephew Tsanava had previously been in this post. To some extent papa was somewhat naïve, for example he ordered his previous assistant in Perm to go to Minsk—so he could go on preparing reports for him. Possibly he assumed that the subordinates left behind could carry on by themselves—and that only he himself could have organised things so cleverly. At the same time as father was posted to Minsk, Kaganovich along with Patolichev and Khrushchev left for superior postings in Kiev (in their consequences father’s ‘principles’ cost him dear). Father boasted of his frugality: ‘When I have to travel I do so in a single railway carriage, while Kaganovich has to have a whole special train at his disposal.’ They called Belorussia ‘third among equals’. (Last among equals doesn’t sound so good.) On one of his visits to Moscow I went to see him and noticed on the hallstand a lady’s overcoat; I turned on my heel and left, without greeting him or asking any questions, although he himself had opened the door. We didn’t see each other for several years. About this time father had a son, Sasha, born to him from outside his marriage, a normal bout of insanity as it seemed to me.

54

Part 1

36. AGAIN THE THEATRE Father didn’t want to hear anything about theatre school: ‘Finish your education, then get on with something you really want to do’, or more categorically: ‘You will finish university, and I will arrange a place for you at a higher diplomatic school.’ My cousin Slavka, already a student of the Institute of International Relations, also told me: ‘Listen to your father. What is an actor? An actor is a lackey who tries to take the upper hand before being broken. If you finish diplomatic school actors will be playing for you!’ Alas, actors long ago turned into lackeys, but not only actors… My parents’ separation weakened father’s influence over my future, and I felt less obliged to take his opinion into account; so I abandoned university in the hope of entering theatre school, but to begin with I went to Sochi for two months. The chekist Losev, head of the Perm special forces unit, was surprised that they had arranged for me to stay at an institute named after Stalin (a medicinal spa) rather than at the ‘Belorussia Sanatorium’. So Losev directed me there instead, and of course organised a warm reception for me and persuaded me to completely change my plans; but unexpectedly father objected to this. ‘Why don’t you like the Stalin Institute?’ I began to laugh. ‘They, er, feed you badly…’ (The duty telephonist gasped). ‘All right, I’ll tell you what, to make sure that they look after you properly, don’t go over to our sanatorium; you have tied my hands—there will be an inspection very soon at the Stalin, and they will send you a copy of the report.’ Probably he did not want rumours about his private life to reach me. My wish to move to the sanatorium was explained, of course, not by my yearning to be better fed—simply my beloved from Moscow Edda Tarakian was coming to see me. We had lived in Sokol as neighbours and at one time had even studied in the same class. Although in the Stalin Institute I occupied a separate room in the gynaecological (?!) department, there were certain rules that I had to reckon with. Father had spoken with the director of the institute V. K. Modestov, and he had ordered a room for us both with a view of the sea; true, he had added not quite affectionately: ‘Well, here you can…’ Here they didn’t disturb me, though admiration of the seascape caused me to forget to go for dinner. (A chauffeuse one day paid me a compliment: ‘You have certainly excited the girl—when she was walking along she was staggering; I had already taken her as far as the New Riviera’). I was getting well again and looking a little better than in the first month, before my dusky girlfriend arrived. I returned to Moscow in the official aircraft of Marshal of Air Forces Vershinin—my army friend, Volodia Zamkov was aiming to be his son-inlaw.

Part 1

55

In the middle of October, at the request of Abrasimov, Permanent Representative of Belorussia, I was auditioned by N. K. Svobodin and V. V. Gotovtsev and was accepted by a theatre school. With me at the same time there was another applicant with valuable social colouring, but who had achieved only the ninth year of school education—they did not accept him. The leadership of the school dreamt of achieving higher education status, and to take a person with incomplete secondary schooling was for them equivalent to sanctioning sub-standard material. I casually threw at them: ‘Two years at university.’ For the first time in my life I studied with drive, even with delight, diligently and successfully—I was considered outstanding in all the specialist subjects, apart from dance—my body movements were poorly coordinated, I walked with my feet turned in and I never knew where to put my arms. If it were not for my excessively youthful looks, I might have succeeded in playing both fops and heroes, but inwardly I felt more inclined toward the roles of neurasthenics. Unfortunately, in Soviet theatre at that time, there was no scope for this line of business. In the second year I played Chichikov in Dead Souls, and then Oblomov (in the exams applause was strictly forbidden, but we had Sasha Gavrilov with us; he played Zakhar, and the applause just went on and on). Within the walls of the school we were in action for twelve hours of the day, but this was not a burden on anyone. They were willing me to be famous. Our teacher in Marxism, A. F. Korobov, suffered from three shortcomings: firstly, he was at one time a fellow worker with Bubnova; secondly, until he was quite elderly he amused himself with women; thirdly, he had a life-long dream of organising a ‘Theatre of Revolutionary Romance’, as a result of which he was plunged into a ceaseless fear of the director and artistic leader V. V. Gotovtsev. From among the students Korobov intended to create a collective which would bring to the people truth and ardour. Of course I really did respond to this idea. By some miracle, in spite of all the searches, a leaflet has survived between the pages of a book. I reproduce its content in full, but I ask you to be indulgent—it was written in 1948. Even clever people, perhaps, have said something similar when they were sitting behind a bottle, but of course they have never dared to read it out in public. But, in my extreme naiveté, this is something that I have actually done. Happily, the others did not understand why I raised my arm. Thoughts about a new theatre. Among individuals as well as whole collectives has arisen the idea of a new theatre, one that was romantic. For such a theatre to exist there is a necessity not so much for elatedness, clarity—ie the means for its realisation—as for a particular level of perception or breadth of insight. But collec-

56

Part 1

tives do not have their own specific credo—unless, that is, it is one that is resolutely imposed from above. All the problems that stand before us are far from new. In order for the theatre to have it own personality a single faith is necessary, a single charge of energy, a challenge equally compelling to all, or at least to the majority. This is necessary if the essence of a play is to be felt more sharply than any that has so far been distilled. There is no need to fear one-sidedness, for any opinion is subjective; if you allow a conviction to be diluted with ten ‘buts’, any attempt to reach an objective essence will be uninteresting. If we are a contemporary theatre, then we must respond not to any events, but only to ‘age-long’ ones—those that are relevant to our theatre. Konstntin Simonov is always of our time, but his plays could be ascribed to anybody you like if there was no indication of authorship. Erenburg’s range is more limited than his, and he is not always burningly topical; to make up for this deficiency he has developed his own creative profile, as it is said in the theatre. And a particular kind of readership is forming around him. It is better to be like the Moscow Arts Theatre and set aside Shakespeare and Schiller, rather than the Theatre of the Young Playgoer, which will give a rendering of anything that comes along. We have lots of newspapers, and they are all similar to each other; but first among them is ‘Vecherka’, the Moscow evening paper. This has its own particular form and content. As indeed does ‘Literaturnaya Gazeta’. What if you should want to see a theatre of militant Communism, and not one adapted to the short-term reality of today? Instead of slavishly fulfilling the tasks set by the Party, we need to go further, to be, so to speak, ‘more royalist than the king’. But this is only possible on condition that the collective consists of people holding the same views , and not just lucky ones in a competition. But even then there remains the danger that from a ‘dozen hot heads’ nothing will materialise. Original theatre, all the more if it is romantic theatre, is only possible where we allow for creative and even political mistakes; for a great outcome is born in the struggle of opposed beginnings. Where this is not the case the artist is doomed to suffer the fate of Don Quixote doing battle with windmills. The question arises: is romantic theatre anything other than an idea scratched at random from the top of our heads? This phrase concludes my appeal. I swear I did not know that it was the work of an anti-Soviet!

Part 1

57

37. CRISIS By the end of the fourth year of the course I had somehow lost my motivation. I had begun to drink again; I had got married; I was short of money. In the summer I didn’t take a break, but managed to earn some cash. Exhaustion crept up from all sides, but it was vodka that took possession of me. The well-known teacher V. P. Markov once said when I was present at a rehearsal—dozing, without a great deal to do: ‘It’s a shame. A talented person, but he’s not likely to produce anything in the future.’ As a matter of fact I was rehearsing at the time the inveterate drunkard Misha in ‘Zykovykh’, I was ‘living’ myself into the part—to do so should not have been difficult for me: Misha’s father, Antip, had no faith in his son, didn’t love him, was jealous of his young wife, tried everything to humiliate him. Although in our case it was not his father who was jealous, but I myself. Having learnt that I was not an only son, I told nobody about it, but dreamt frenziedly about vengeance: at times I had a dream that I was killing my father or that I was insulting him mortally (it would have been very difficult to insult papa mortally). I dreamt that I would become a great actor ‘so that thanks to my reputation everything around me would echo what I had to say’; and that I would change my family name—something quite modest: Alekseev, would that be bad?… No, I will not give him the satisfaction of being proud to inherit his name!… Unfortunately they were forever bringing up my father’s name. N. K. Svobodin, rehearsing ‘Girl with a Pitcher’, pointed to me as a successful role model: ‘Now you all know student Gusarov, but who of you is aware that his father is the Secretary of the Central Committee of Byelorussia? (In the play a highborn lady is pretending to be a servant girl). After this the students one after another came up to me and asked, is it true? I muttered something indistinctly in reply. On another occasion they took us to the Theatre of the Soviet Army to see Perventsev’s ‘South Junction.’ Derzhavin played Stalin, a most accurate copy of the leader, with the same cold, deadly eyes. Stalin-Derzhavin talked on the telephone in Sverdlovsk (with Andrianov) and slowly and clearly declaimed: ‘Patolichev has promised tanks, but Gusarov has stated that they will not be bringing up the artillery.’ My neighbour pinched my arm: ‘This is not about your father is it?’ I reddened, and, stammering, admitted that it was. Gotovtsev visited father at Starokoniushenny in the hope of staving off the merging of the school with the State Institute of Drama, and I had to arrange this meeting. Grandma served some ordinary-looking apples; Vladimir Vasilievich sedately peeled one of them with a little knife (nobody did

58

Part 1

this at home) and with measured delivery got to the heart of the matter under discussion. In 1950 a threat suddenly appeared over Papa. He paced about the flat in a vacant sort of way, drank a lot of valierianka sedative and complained about injustice: ‘One minister has said it seems as though I was silencing criticism, but he himself is a number one toady, forever sending telegrams. He’s in charge of the milk market, and it’s as though I had confiscated a cow from him—and that’s what this whole suppression business amounts to…’ Much later Shepilov told me that the top echelons had made it clear to him that father seemed to have ‘lost the initiative.’ They again appointed him as an Inspector, but this was a fall not an elevation. Now he had to do a lot of travelling about the country. Our dearest Vladimir Vasilevich Gotovtsev once stopped me in the corridor and asked: ‘Where is your father now?’ ‘In Siberia.’ ‘What?!’ The old actor, who had once played Aliosha Karamazov in a Moscow Arts Theatre production, jumped back three metres. Just before the end of our course they did in fact merge us with The State Institute. But this didn’t affect me; and after I departed I was just left to my own devices. I was burdened by my family; and I did not have even the minimum of professional skills. Without much thought I accepted my very first job offer—to go to Riazan to the Theatre for the Young Audience. My wife, with our young son, remained in Moscow. Other ex-students ‘showed themselves off’ in the theatres of the capital, and even the most famous provincial actors did not consider it shameful to be ‘inspected’ in Moscow. I was too proud for such humiliation—after all, my portrait embellished the April number of Ogoniok, and more than once I was called for a screen test. (This was the time of ‘Stories about the Siberian Land’ and ‘The Kubansky Cossacks’; but, during the course of one year they only took five or six films from all the studios in the country, and they cut the film in which I was supposed to be taking a part. Nobody guessed it would be rescheduled for television—at this time only a few houses in Moscow were decorated with television antennae). In the end no one from our course made acting their career, apart from Boris Runge (who, on the academic ladder, was almost a professor). 38. NOVEMBER CELEBRATIONS I won’t delve too deeply into the circumstances of my first affair, but everything was quite normal: I was sixteen, she twenty-eight. With the second there was a misfire—the tryst was in barracks, we were frightened by the slightest sounds we made, and subsequent meetings were also lacking in poetry—I was only thinking about how I could find my form. Failure made

Part 1

59

an imprint on my whole life. But women did not feel hurt and were agreeable to fresh attempts—men were not there; they had died in the war… Edda Tarakian (for some reason I did not like this double ‘d’!), in distinction from my Perm girlfriend Zhenya, looked as though she was unused to asserting herself; and physically she was a dainty little creature: slender, dark, with regular facial features, a beautiful body and magnificent feet (Volodya Zamkov, skilled in painting and drawing, drew my attention to this last detail). Eda’s character and her manners were also most endearing, but in my eyes she possessed one extremely important fault—we were both of the same age, as indeed were mama and papa, although it always seemed to us that we would not repeat the mistakes of our parents. We became accustomed to each other over one year. There came a time when Eda, preparing herself for the anatomy exam in the third year at the medical institute, was able to supplement textbook study with knowledge acquired in practice. ‘Gluteus maximus’, she whispered, passing her hand over I don’t remember which part of me… I noted down in the margins of a notebook (containing some verses of Barkov) the number 8—she was sleeping, while I was sitting at the table undressed like Adam. And all the same I waited for each new meeting with fear—what if I cannot make it today? If Eda was late, and this often happened, I was incredibly nervous, every minute looking at my watch—I had to be a ‘success’—even mother was able to increase her qualification in some routine exams. And misfires certainly did happen, although I could not imagine being with a more voluptuous woman. I became very attached to Eda; however I continued to think: southern women age early, how will all this end? Three abortions are not a joke, in forty years she will be an old woman. Father in his cups shook his head: son, don’t marry early… and don’t marry too late… (From which I concluded that in his second marriage he was not very happy). However I was not particularly worried about the future: Eda will finish at the institute; but in Moscow, as she herself said, there will be no work for her. So she will have to go somewhere else, and then everything will unravel of its own accord. But when she did finish at the institute it became clear that her mother’s breast cancer had spread to her spine. Her daughter could not leave when her mother’s days were numbered. This was the first correction to my imaginings; but the second arose from the fact that Eda acquired another lover, Yu. Pushkar, a group leader from their course. He was a man’s man—with a piercing look, hands of iron and an anatomy that caused Eda to lose consciousness. I could only be glad for her, but I became disconsolate—fine if he married her (he had already introduced himself to her parents, whereas I had been avoiding them, fearing betrothal); but would he forgive her past, would he always love her—she had become so pallid, her brow creased— was this not my own fault?… My fault, my way of paying off my debts to her… In a clinic in Egorevsk she had an abortion—they pitched her first son

60

Part 1

out onto the rubbish heap—she cried out in pain, nothing for me, not a word, only ‘Mama, Mama, help me!…’ Afterwards for a long time she bandaged her breasts in order to keep her mama in the dark. Then, surprisingly, she did cling to me—we were not supposed to be together, but that is what happened. On public holidays, from early morning until late in the evening, mother was always taking part in demonstrations—returning with aching feet. In the past we made use of her absence and spent the whole day rolling on the floor, spread with bed covers, accompanied by the optimistic music of massed brass bands. And now, on the seventh of November 1949, I waited for Eda at home as before, but I did not prepare myself for the meeting, I didn’t try to get any sleep, did not think about performance, I simply waited, I drank, without tasting what I drank. My heart ached, and I howled in loneliness. I knew that nobody could help me, that nobody could take away those stranger’s kisses from her darling body… And now she has come to me—perhaps for the last time!—I don’t need anything else, with eyes blind with tears I do not see how she is undressing, I am not thinking about anything, I don’t look at my watch, she might go away for ever, so let her at least know that I also loved her—and that I was tormented: not long ago she gave birth to a live daughter (Eda every time delayed having an abortion), but the doctor, understanding the situation, went on washing his hands, washing his hands… And I did not come to her, did not fall on my knees! When a man loves a woman he will give her everything except rest, and I on that day was not an exception. And now she is sleeping again, but there is nobody to count up or note the successes, I look at her—wrinkles, even some moles I notice, her face swollen with tears, her nose seems ugly, longer… I quietly sing to myself ‘Long drank the soldier…’ Afterwards confessions began, and gloatingly and desperately we both owned up to our betrayals. ‘Dubrovin? How could you!’ ‘And how could you? Maria in a headscarf—did you cover her face?’ We diluted our grief with glasses of tea; I became drunk with emotion, with the sound of unfathomable words—forever, never… But Aunt Zina, very experienced in life, predicted that this was not the end of it all, but only the beginning. And certainly Eda was already looking at me again: ‘Poor chap, they took away your toy—Eda.’ A friend, P. P. Ulitin, who had survived ‘37 in prison, and knew life, compared this kind of situation with a shot of cognac. He considered that for an actor such crises are necessary, not two or three times (as with me) but at least two or three times a year. He was right, and I began to teach myself to transfer to the stage the kind of spiritual upsets that I had never dreamed of before, from which, I hoped, temperament and breadth of emotional expression would result. For my vocal exercises I chose Glinka’s ‘Doubt’ and everything went dark before my eyes with the words I had heard a hundred times before: ‘In my dream I see her happy lover…’ I came to like

Part 1

61

still more Tyutchev’s old song, which, under Kozlovsky’s influence, had come into fashion: As in late autumn sometimes There comes a day, an hour When of a sudden we feel the breath of spring… I not only distinguished, nervously, Eda’s phone ring from all others, but even on the street I could not bump into her accidentally without a rush of misgiving… On the 18th of November I did feel a breath of spring—I lead Eda into the registry office (directly from somebody else’s bed). They gave us a week to think things over. Perhaps they ought to have given us a year! But was it worth cutting it short? Who knows, had we waited longer something a hundred times worse might have happened… At least we had acquired a son. For several days up to New Year we hauled Eda’s things to my place, working until late, unpacking, arranging things, so that I collapsed, dead beat, and cannot remember anything of our wedding night—a whole night; not day, not evening, as before; now our liaison was no longer a secret, now, under one roof, we slept together for the first time. I had never even seen a woman’s nightdress before. Hovering between waking and dreaming I felt something tender and warm touching me and I pressed myself against her; but it seemed unreal, as if I had disappeared somewhere, and it went on being like that the whole night long—neither awake nor asleep; but then finally I lost consciousness… In the morning I went out on to the street, and from the fresh air actually flopped down in a fainting fit; but I did quickly recover. 39. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION FOR THE ASSISTANCE OF CASUALTIES (MOPR) ‘Maizel! Do you understand, Maizel,’ said Yurka Baginian. ‘The surname speaks for itself—Jewish!’ I gave him a public rebuke (although I did not call him by his surname) and the other fellows agreed with me, and came up and asked: ‘Who said that? And Yegor Edzjubov even shouted: ‘Yurka? That reptile!’ Galia Maizel, first wife of some outlandish professor (incidentally Russian, according to his passport) did not distinguish herself either by her sympathy or tenderness (I later had the opportunity of confirming this from

62

Part 1

personal experience) but I was always convinced that a surname cannot ‘speak for itself’, and I am proud to have stuck to my views as far as I could. ‘You have never heard the word MOPR?’ I reproached Tolia Sudzan in the first year and persuaded my fellow students to join this organisation. But I quickly realised that my efforts were in vain—MOPR was a charity affiliated to the Red Cross and bore no relation to its emblem—bars with an outstretched hand. A female activist showed me an album, which was a record of injured Soviet soldiers; they were giving them sweets, they were reading to them and even embroidering things for them. But however I tried, I could not understand what kind of relationship those injured men, defenders of their government (even such a fine and just one as our own) had to prisoners of war (who in my understanding had suffered for their valiant struggle against capitalist stooges). Let us suppose that we are unable to send anything to the prisoners themselves, then we must at least help their families so their children don’t go hungry. Wracked by perplexity I wrote to Stalin (in the letter I touched on other matters that were troubling me, such as: why do they silence foreign radio? Should we not get to know the face of the class enemy? Why are Soviet soldiers forbidden to make contact with the population of occupied countries? Are Communists young and old supposed to idle their time away in their barracks while the ideological struggle goes on around them? I myself often wrote out the words of the ‘Internationale’ in German, and in these sheets of paper I wrapped bread, which I donated to prisoners. Hearing about the ‘Internationale’ so pleased the Germans in Moscow that, on any pretext, they began to knock on our door in Savrasov Street). There was no reply to my letter; but somebody warned father. I was not worried, and I wrote to Suslov—with the same result. After several months they did away with MOPR. 40. THE CRISIS DEVELOPS To recall my stupidity is more vexing than amusing, but, if some giant like Solzhenitsyn did not understand the nature of the system and made mistakes—those letters he jotted down to a friend—what is there to say about me? I had never heard of any criticisms being addressed to the regime, nobody from even my most distant family relations suffered repressions, and my personal experience was insignificant. Besides, it is not in my nature to be a faultfinder. I was not a slave of the regime, on the contrary I was its supporter and defender, I was brought up by it and was concerned about its fate, and if from time to time I objected to some of the details, then this was exclusively a result of my extreme naiveté and ignorance—it was as though I had fallen from the sky, knowing nothing… Of course all sorts of things

Part 1

63

reached my ears, at university they were forever sending anonymous notes to boring Professor Yudovski about generals in sable coats. He, using dangerous expressions, put forward a theory: that he had acquired them as a result of his own skills and labour (‘labour’!) But my mama also possessed an astrakhan fur coat, and I didn’t see anything terrible in that. I knew that Father’s dacha was obtained at public expense, as was the furniture—it meant that up to that time they were for his use, so long as he didn’t fly from, or, more painfully, fall from his high mountain top… I also knew that to those labouring he was just a bath-house attendant, but that at certain times they were his clients. In general my conscience at this period was in a much more peaceful state than in childhood, when I was richer than Karlusha in having a glass of milk and twenty grammes of butter. I knew that Borka Runge and his brother Sakko had no choice but to go hungry, but surely being a student is the final frontier before success (incidentally things have worked out well for Boria, he is now an honoured actor; while Sakko (from Sokol) is on his way to becoming a successful man of letters—and a notable dandy). Mama was sympathetic to the brothers—when they were still children they lost their parents—and sometimes she tried to feed them. To others life was not so hard. One day I turned round and clumsily bumped into Tamara Shchetinina; her future husband Dima Borodin shook his head and drawled: ‘What are you boasting about? Do you get a better breakfast with her?’ But Tamara was even then extremely plump. To this day I still meet up with my best friend in college, although we have gone our separate ways, my single sandwich always ready to be swapped for a little glass of vodka. In my first year they arrested the poet Fidelgolts. They summoned his close friends Tsisliak and Ivanov, and in their evidence they tried not to harm the accused. The proceedings were not openly discussed, although our director, Borisov, did refer to this event, when he hinted that we as individuals knew little about those who lived side by side with us. There was a rumour that Fidelgolts played a part in getting together a manuscript magazine which had criticised Zhdanov and the literary policies of the Party. We consoled ourselves with the thought that we knew nothing about it, but that the organisers of the magazine were going to be investigated, and then we should know what’s what. Time went by, and in a friendly kind of way everyone forgot about Fidelgolts, nobody took any interest in how things had ‘resolved themselves’. We saw him many years later, when he told us that he saved himself by passing himself off as a medical orderly. An air force colonel who had escaped abroad and who had been a Party organiser in the Zhukov Academy spoke on the BBC (after his talks they started to jam these broadcasts). I was influenced by what he said; but I was

64

Part 1

unable to confide in anybody—who could I share my ideas with, when I myself was supposed to be the source of political information? I heard that in the Institute of International Relations there was just one Jew, who happened to be Stalin’s son-in-law, but again a clarification was found: ours was not in fact a Jewish republic, therefore there was nobody who could describe themselves as Jews ‘among a nation of equals’. In the war years I noticed that antifascist propaganda turned into antiGerman propaganda, and after the article ‘Comrade Ehrenburg Simplifies’ I managed to calm down. For the speech exam I chose a poem by K. Simonov, ‘The German’. Before reading it I first recited a couplet from Ernst Bush in German, in order to create the style of an international singer, as well as a platform, so to speak, on which to base the content of the poem. I received the top mark of five; and more importantly my colleagues came up to me and shook my hand, having felt that this was indeed all mine, and that it had caused me pain. In an evening dedicated to the memory of the partisan heroine Zoya Kosmodemianskaya, I voiced one criticism of her on the basis that she had written in her notes Kutuzov’s words: ‘For one Russian I would not take ten Frenchmen’. ‘Dear Zoya,’ I exclaimed fervently, ‘on this occasion you were not drinking from the purest spring!’ (Which were these springs, and exactly who was drinking from them, would be difficult to say—Zoya’s diaries by then had not been published, and it would have been impossible to ascertain whether or not they actually existed). I talked to one of Kosmodemianskaya’s class colleagues; in her words Zoya was a withdrawn, bullied girl, unloved in her family; and in her turn a hateful mother. As to her father there is a complete absence of evidence (a Jew perhaps?) In a passionate speech I reminded the assembled company that people are divided not by nationality but by class. They only thought Yaroslav Dombrovsky a traitor because he was not a Frenchman. I concluded my speech with the phrase: ‘For Communists the fatherland is where the battle for justice is being fought!’ They applauded me warmly of course; but two senior members of the audience—A. F. Korobov and Misha Marshak (the latter a leader of the university students’ club)—rebuked me. Later, in the height of the struggle with cosmopolitanism Korobov reminded me of my speech. ‘Committee member Gusarov has made concessions to cosmopolitan opinions’, he declared from the rostrum, ‘but committee member Borodin did not give his approval!’ One must know Dima Borodin—he is somebody who was clearly incapable of ‘correcting’ anybody whoever they might be. Preparing for exams, we lived together under the same roof for weeks, but he never mentioned the

Part 1

65

subject of politics. His father had been the chairman of the Judicial Commission of the Provisional Government (of which, incidentally, Vishinsky was a member) and was preparing to bring Lenin to trial (but did not succeed). When power changed hands Borodin did not come out in opposition to the new regime, and he was lucky enough to die by natural causes (as did some others, for example the last chief of police Dzhunkovsky). Dima always worked assiduously, and he is working today; he loves the theatre, avoids politics; but he has joined the Party in order to compensate for the ‘nationality’ (Jewish) of his second wife, and, of course, so that they would give him a role on the stage. 41. NOT TOVARISHCH STALIN, BUT YOSIF VISSARIONOVICH! —our teacher in political economics, an elderly Jewish lady, earnestly corrected each of us. She loved graphic expressions such as: ‘The capitalist has been sucking surplus value out of the proletariat!’ You can imagine what joy these pearls provided for the students of the theatre school and with what enthusiasm they parodied and mimicked her. One day with pride she related how, in wartime, she never went to the market—so as not to give any support to private traders. At the time I was surprised that in our generation such idiots still existed. At one of the seminars sprightly Anka Potapova (in the future she would be one of Korobov’s wives) deftly copied the accent of our teacher as well as her body language. The auditorium was rocking with laughter and the old pedagogue took offence: ‘Anya, I am from Ukraine, I know I have an accent, but why do you talk about me like that?’ From that day her ‘Ukrainian’ accent became a linguistic legend; but it was the accent itself which became the object of general hilarity, not her preposterous but loyal utterances. They taunted her, believing this was permissible and appropriate. She and I found ourselves together at one point and I asked her: ‘Are they really going to arrest Gomulka? Surely he has admitted his mistakes…’ She replied bitterly: ‘I have been in the Party for thirty years and I am surprised at nothing…’—and she left the auditorium, trying to withdraw into herself, like my mama. When I approached the lecturer Oleshkovich with a similar question: ‘Is Bebler really a spy? He fought in Spain!’ The dashing propagandist saw things differently: ‘They recruited him there!’

66

Part 1

Meanwhile a great celebration was approaching—the seventieth birthday ‘not of comrade Stalin but of Yosif Vissarionovich’. At about this time I made a rostrum speech, promising, in honour of the jubilee, to study with the firm commitment of obtaining the full mark of five in all my subjects, but I did not take the opportunity of calling the leader of the world proletariat either great or genial. Thank goodness nobody was counting up the epithets, but I could at least plead that I was not speaking from notes. On the course I wrote a report on Feikhtvanger (‘Moscow ’37’) and was rewarded with applause. I don’t think more than two or three people read Feikhtvanger, but apart from myself who else would bury themselves in such a piece of work? On the other hand, when I began to tell a particular joke, my listeners melted away. My student friend Volgorodsky, whose father was a prisoner (precisely because he had told the same joke) made an extremely expressive gesture with a bony finger raised in the air, meaning ‘informed on somebody’. Now this will seem strange, but then I did not understand what these gestures signified. I was just a happy man—I could enjoy my favourite occupation, believed in my own talent and adored the song ‘Varshavianka’. And only rarely did I notice that many of those around me were looking for nothing more than a peaceful life. 42. SERIOZHA SHTEIN Seriozha was born in the same year as I, and grew up in the Arbat, in House 44. When a child he more than once heard the doorman say as he went by: ‘There goes the young owner…’ Seriozha’s ancestor, a prime minister of Prussia (Shtein’s land reform), escaped to Russia from the tyranny of Napoleon. His father was the last governor of Voronezh in the retinue of the Tsar; he visited the Tsar twice when he was in exile in Barnaulskaya, visits that were noted by the careless monarch in his diary, published after his execution. His father did not take part in the White movement; more recently he even attended the Mayday demonstration and having set little Sieriozha on his shoulders declaimed in a singing voice: Before you is the red flag on its white staff, He who is the bravest will carry it in his arms! And Sieriozha waved a red flag over his head, greeting comrade Stalin. In ’37 they took away his father Vladimir Nikolaevich for the last time (probably they had to meet the regional norms), and he perished. His widow, Ksenia Aleksandrovna, was an alumna of the Smolny Institute, and step-

Part 1

67

daughter of the gentleman in waiting to Neigart. She remained single with four children, and she reared and educated all of them. She is alive today. Sieriozha served in the army, afterwards worked in a factory; then in theatre school, where he continued to go around in a shabby worker’s jacket. He spent much of his time messing about with stage effects and adjusting the lighting for the benefit of diploma students, sometimes spending the whole night there, although his baronial mansion was nearby (the family occupied the former kitchen). Every morning, Ksenia Aleksnadrovna, having prepared sandwiches for both of them, accompanied her son to work. My mama didn’t need to make sandwiches—every month the black limousine brought two thousand roubles to the house. Mama was also the director of a school; so the result was that the whole of my state living allowance was handed over to me ‘for pocket money’. Looking at me meaningfully, Seriozha took out the sandwich and turned it over, but I pretended that I hadn’t taken the hint. Then Sieriozha would say: ‘Shall we go over on the crossing? (In order to get to the snack bar we would have had to cross Gertsen Street). I firmly opposed the idea. Work finished, I went on foot by Malaya Bronnaya towards Mayakovskaya Street; Seriozha accompanied me, solemnly carrying his sandwich; on the way I surrendered of course, but in revenge I began to torment my tempter: ‘Shout ‘Long live comrade Stalin!’ Sieriozha obediently shouted it out. ‘Long live the agency of the hallmark supervisor!’ (We were just passing it). ‘Long live the agency of the hallmark supervisor! Long live any kind of supervisor!’ Having downed a glass or two to put us to rights, we sat on a bench in the Square of the Patriarchs, made short work of the ill-starred sandwich and began to share our innermost thoughts. I wanted to read some verses—for some reason none by Mayakovsky or Simonov. …And God will make it up to me For this short and bitter life— One that a short man in a grey blouse Has made for all of us. The biography of Gumilev was well known to me (although only by hearsay from Leningraders who had been evacuated), but Seriozha, in whose house an icon was carefully preserved that had been given by the Empress,

68

Part 1

knew almost nothing about poetry. I related—and was myself amazed —how Gumilev had foretold his own death! Then we went on to read some Blok and Yesenin—the kind of things that would not have been suppressed, but still don’t get to be performed on the stage—and much else that is not allowed to be read, even when we are at home and completely by ourselves. In an exam Chesnovich asked our fellow student Dinka: ‘Have you read any Marinetti?’ She blurted out foolishly: ‘Yes’ (Most likely she did not look us in the eye for a warning sign, but must have decided that the question was based on the syllabus). ‘Who recommended you to read it?’ Her friend, poor Shatilov, reddened—he hung by a thread, suspected of cosmopolitanism. Seriozha knew a quatrain written by his neighbour Kolia Glazkov: Let them say the windows of TASS Are much more useful than my verse. Or as useful as well a WC will pass, But this is not poetry, it’s got to be worse! One day, after a few drinks, we called in at a church. Without any formalities, we fell heavily on our knees, began to sing with the choir and bowed down to the ground—crossing ourselves and kissing the floor. On another occasion, sobbing hysterically, I questioned my father-in-law, an old Bolshevik: ‘Didn’t Lenin build this prison?!’ He himself began to cry—truly from horror—and muttered: ‘Lenin, Lenin, yes, exactly; but let him rest!’ But Seriozha chipped in: ‘Forget about him; it’s the others who have become completely ossified…’ But when almost sober he once said with perfect conviction: ‘They were driving needles under people’s nails in the twenties, and in ’37 they were still doing precisely the same thing…’—We were sitting in the kitchen in my house, it was late at night. 43. DUST, DUST, DUST… Everywhere non-Russian family names are monotonously recited: Gurvich, Yuzovsky, Borshchagovsky, Altman. I don’t know how it was with the rest of the Soviet people, but we, drama students, never read newspaper articles.

Part 1

69

The dismissals began. Our party organiser Aleksandr Vokach (now an actor of ‘Sovremennik’) declared from the rostrum: ‘It’s not an accident that Cosmopolitans have foreign names!’ There were murmurings in the hall and then people began to hiss for quiet, but Boria Runge, usually reserved and occupied with more practical things, said: ‘A stra-a-ange campaign for a multinational government…’ Leitin, Karl Gurvich and Bronshtein were fellow-students of ours. They had come from a Jewish studio which had already been liquidated. Professor Yuri Dmitriev—he looked like a lackey from a noble house— lowered my mark in an exam because I had stated: ‘According to the evidence of his contemporaries our hero Kostia Varlamov did not learn his roles or read books, but he did love bliny with butter, pirozhki and embroidery’. ‘How is that?!’ protested the professor indignantly. ‘Varlamov was friendly with Tchaikovsky and Davydov, and Koni sculpted portraits that put him in a sharply observed social context, and you talk to me about eating pies!’ I insisted that Varlamov’s success came from intuition, from God, and not from progressive ideas. Dmitriev naturally could not agree with me, although it became clear at the time of our quarrel that I knew how uncle Kostia acted on the stage, while he only had an extremely vague idea about it. So naturally he took the government’s point of view. In one of his lectures he gave us an account of Chekhov put forward by Yermilov; but Seriozha Shtein had doubts about Ranevskaya and Gaev having evil intentions when they began to nail up Firs at home. Dmitrev tried to extricate himself, prattled on about objective and subjective perception, finally got himself in a muddle and maliciously cut the argument short: ‘I am only putting forward the government’s point of view!’ ‘You would say that’ said Sergei. The famous Professor P. I. Novitsky was repentant at a general meeting: ‘I didn’t have the right to orient Babanova towards a western repertoire, but it did seem to me that she was more than anybody else a Juliet, a Diana… But also, of course, a Tanya Arbuzova…’ This business no longer enthralled me—and to think how I burned with enthusiasm in the first years! Now I was simply dragging myself forward towards a diploma and had not even begun to share my colleagues’ worry about getting employment after the end of the course. As part of my diploma work they gave me a warm, romantic, role in a primitive Baltic play ‘Life in the Citadel’. But that was a stroke of luck—Kolia Nikitsky (now a well known variety singer) had to appear in ‘Sibiriachka’ by Ye. Zagoriansky. Sibiriachka—this is a new strain of wheat, which, during the course of four long and boring acts, an obstinate crop innovator is attempting to breed. But followers of Veisman and Morgan torment and persecute him. Under their

70

Part 1

influence even his bride begins to have doubts about the innocence of her favourite person, who, by the end of the fourth act has finally managed to produce his ‘Sibiriachka’—an outcome which the playgoer has not had the slightest doubt about from the very first minute of the performance. True, at the start they had proposed an outstanding role for me—the soldier Pikalov in ‘The Love of Yarova’ (my teacher was A. G. Vovsy), but I couldn’t cope with it. I couldn’t extend myself into buffoonery—everybody at that time was scared of playing sketchy roles; in short, they were not ready to express themselves on the stage. Perhaps this lack of success was a bigger blow for Arkadi Grigorevich than for me, and without success life for him at that time was not sweet. S. G. Birman returned his letters to her and publicly avowed that she was not a Jew. And even today she still feels the need to go on doing this. Her memoirs came out recently, and the first sentence is: ‘I was christened in a church’. My private life unfolded not so tragically, although while they were together the domestic war between my wife and my mother was not relieved for a single hour—it cost one of them to open a door, to have the other slam it shut; if one switched on the radio, the other would rush up and switch it off; if one sat down to watch television, the other would lie down to sleep; and the casements did not stay in one position for a minute. Eda did not think of herself as a housewife and was not prepared to be one—she spent all her free time at the bedside of her mother, who was dying in torment; but my mama claimed that the only thing she knew was how sit in front of a mirror. Later Eda gave birth to our son, but this circumstance also failed to reconcile bride and mother-in-law. ‘That wasn’t the reason for her marrying a Gusarov’ mother repeated, still firmly convinced that their previous husbands occupied the minds of the female half of the country, beginning with artists of the opera and ballet and ending with her own woman neighbour. Eda saw father once or twice, but only in passing. As time went by he seemed to want to hurry home after work less and less, more and more to chase daydreams on the way. When one day I crossed the threshold of the flat I was instantly aware of things that were missing—a scarf, a cap (I won’t mention the gloves, I myself was always leaving mine somewhere even when sober). But now, having returned home, I realised that Eda, with the help of her nannie, Polya, was collecting her things and was wrapping up Slavka. Slavka was howling. I said nothing, turned around and went out in search of alcohol. Mama had tried to run after Eda, but when I returned the house was silent. Not long before that Eda had taken from her dying mother a small bottle containing cocaine. Now I extricated it and swallowed all of the white powder, not in order to achieve undeserved peace, but to brace myself for a theatrical farewell to Mama, who was getting herself ready for her work at school. Then an ambulance arrived from Sklifosovsky and they washed out my stomach. All night and all through the following day I lay motionless

Part 1

71

with my eyes fixed on the ceiling and fingers pressed to my wrist. The runaway took pity on me and returned. I felt a happy man again, although the quarrels at home by no means came to an end. When the Riazan director A S. Verkhovsky invited me to take the role of Lenin in ‘The Family’ I agreed without any hesitation; but my treasures, my Eda, with little Slavik, remained in Moscow, and I was unable to tear myself away to get home more than once a week. I celebrated my twenty sixth birthday in Riazan in the company of a lovely actress Charskaya, wife of honoured actor Orlov. Her husband was away from home, but might soon return; I had earlier decided that I would make friends with him, and under this noble pretext end my liaison with his wife. But one day a telegram arrived—he had fallen under a train at Lugansk. In tears Charskaya whispered to me: ‘Don’t leave me…’—and she left to go to the funeral. When she returned she was inconsolable—nothing would distract her, neither the stage nor the screen; so I had finally to go to the switch and turn off the light. Orlov’s jacket and cap seemed to fit me. The first role that I played at Riazan was that of Ernst, a boy in the tenth year at school and a member of the Hitler youth movement, in a play called ‘The truth about his Father’. He should have been ready to defend his country in street battles with Soviet tanks, but instead of this he is discovered in an abandoned private house belonging to an Oberscharführer, where, in the middle of general chaos, he is drinking wine. When the new occupying powers open a school Ernst is not keen to go there, but his teacher tells him about his Communist father, whom Ernst himself does not remember. The play is carried along by high-flown words. I searched for associations, fantasised, and tried to embody my own life experience in the personification of this image; I brought to mind the terror with which people in Russia awaited the arrival of the Germans, even going to a library to read some of Ehrenburg’s essays on war—in short I aroused thoughts and feelings in myself, which I did not experience again even in the heaviest days of battle. Before me the actor Günther had played the role of Ernst. He was a German from Povolzhe, who later left the theatre with resentment, especially because the authorities would not entrust him with the role of Lenin. To Günther, Ernst was a dreamy young boy, who accepted war as a misfortune; to me he was a warrior Hunveibin (using today’s terminology). This rousing song was to me not lyrical, as it was for Günther, but soldierly: I went through hell for seven weeks and I swear In that place there are neither multitudes, nor fires, nor devils— But only the dust, dust, dust from marching boots!… For a soldier there can be no rest in war…

72

Part 1

And while for the whole season we were going around on tour along those dire Riazan roads, this song became unusually popular in the theatre. I did not prepare subsequent roles so diligently. The plays were grey and dull, and the productions under Verkhovsky deteriorated; as an actor he was fine, but his direction awful. In Moscow, paradoxically, it is still possible to do interesting work under the noses of the ministries, the managers and bosses; but in the provinces it’s absolutely out of the question. Even now getting a role for an actor depends on his biographical details (not long ago the authorities were pleased that Ulianov would play Lenin—no risk…), but in those days the experience of the director counted for nothing against the arbitrary decisions of others. It was not the director who decided who played whom, but the obkom, all the more so if the text concerned the role of Lenin. In the provinces therefore only the most omnivorous and persistent actors survive, together with the most unconscientious and corruptible directors. 44. THE ROLE OF LENIN Nothing can be more boring than to take on the role of Lenin. He knows everything, thinks of everything and I don’t suppose even the subtlest artist could add anything in opposition to this. In a biographical play, secondary schoolboy Volodia Ulianov is insolent to everybody and lectures everybody. His teachers—nonentities and careerists; his brother—an insubstantial dreamer. Their mother lacks confidence and has no faith in the future; only the workers—it’s unknown from where they have fallen—retain some hope. The workers—right-minded fellows, it is true, although they are unaware of it. But Volodia will make it clear to them. At first they don’t want to listen; but to this secondary schoolboy, a real miracle-worker and prophet, the essence of the matter is quite clear: all they have to do is to listen carefully and try and remember every word he tells them. I learned the text with disgust; but at rehearsals I followed uncomplainingly the staging and intonations of the director. Trying to create in my imagination an ideal way of life, I read Lenin’s favourite novel ‘What Can Be Done?’ by Chernyshevsky. It is considered boring and weak (which did not get in the way of my reading it again in prison), but, it seems, I did understand what Lenin found of value in it—the novel gives advice and prescriptions, while all the rest of Russian literature merely presents moral problems, without daring to propose answers. Chernishevsky threatened the family in its traditional form, and in the novel a happy quartet of heroes— Vera Pavlovna, Kirsanov, Biumont-Lopukhov and Katerina Vasilevna—live in the same kind of way as Mayakovsky, Lilia and Osip Mandelstam actually

Part 1

73

did in the twenties, and as is now accepted in Sweden and Denmark. (Nevertheless I am not proposing here to decipher this aspect of the novel in total reverence of Chernyshevsky). From Chernyshevsky I went on to other accessible sources, and I was struck by how strong was the influence of the older brother Aleksandr on the younger Vladimir Ulianov: ‘Will you drink some milk?’ ‘If Sasha does.’ His brother’s punishment was the heaviest shock in the life of Vladimir Ulianov. Thirst for revenge, and not ‘the stormy development of the working class’ pushes him onto the road of struggle. Reading now the memoirs of members of the pre-revolutionary narodovoltsy, I see the extent to which they, and even the Socialist Revolutionaries, were more romantic and more scrupulous than the rough-and-ready Bolsheviks. They put on my greasepaint, I went onto the stage, and like a clockwork doll repeated the alien words, alien gestures, alien intonations; true, from performance to performance I tried to soften the tone—but, there was a limit to how brazenly insolent the son of Ilia Nikolaievich could be to his teachers! They praised me in the newspapers, and there were photographs. After performances they gave me flowers, girls hung around the stage door awaiting my appearance. Once however, the reviewer in the newspaper ‘Stalin’s Banner’ thought it necessary to remind me that I was not Lenin, and had observed an ‘unwarranted nervousness, which was not in the leader’s nature’. But I did not spend too much nervous energy on this role. I only gave away bouquets when Eda came, on other days I passed them on to the actresses. On one occasion it was the birthday of the wardrobe mistress, with whom the actor Raitsev was in love. He asked me to make a present to her of the flowers; but another actor, Spasennikov, had calculated that it was his wife’s turn. A storm blew up; Spasennikov called me a stupid boy and Raitsev a ‘gruel eater’. As far as I was concerned, the only flowers that matter are wild flowers in a field, or, if the worst comes to the worst, flowers in a flowerbed; but at home I prefer Russian salad with onion. On one occasion as I was waiting backstage for my entrance, the properties manager, a forty-year-old single woman, happened to be sitting beside me. She looked at me for a long time, and then, as if overcome with depression, declared: ‘Ah, Vladimir Ilich, if you only knew what would happen…’ On another occasion, in her presence, I began to sing: Quickly we shall fan the fires of the world. And level the churches and prisons to the ground!

74

Part 1

‘Well, they have certainly managed to level the churches…’ the properties manager responded mournfully. Among her collection of properties I found a book by Yaroslavsky ‘V. I. Lenin’, published in 1925. The words were almost the same as those we were familiar with, but somehow they sounded a little different—more naïve, brighter. The well-known ‘Vow of Stalin’ is only referred to in a single paragraph; on the other hand the speeches of Zinoviev and Krupskaya are printed in full. I even came across the expression ‘the work of Lenin and Zinoviev’ (admittedly with a particular event in mind—the founding of the Komintern). So it turns out that Lenin did not live alone in the hut, but also had Zinoviev as a companion. ‘The party deputed me to safeguard the lives of the revolutionary leaders Lenin and Zinoviev’ says Yemelianov. And right there in the properties department I came across this observation among others: ‘In the storeroom of shop No.6 (followed by the address) there are artistic portraits: Lenin with Zinoviev at 1 rouble 50 kopecks each, Trotsky with Lunacharsky, 2 roubles’. What is this all about? Obviously more artistic means more expensive, but in this storeroom why were there no portraits of Stalin on his own, and with a price tag? To me life in the army or university was still no more real than life in the exclusive, if temporary, ‘high’ orbits occupied by my father. The latter provided interesting material for observation, only weakly reflected in the ordinary life of society as a whole. This is where, finally, I came down to earth, immersed in the routine of daily work, and surrounded by people who were unhappy, frightened and deprived of their rights. 45. VERKHOVSKY Aleksandr Semionovich Verkhovsky was the boss in our theatre, so he was able to shout at all his underlings. But in front of his superiors—whether in local or touring companies—he was shamelessly fawning and obsequious. He knew the word ‘principles’ of course, but did not possess any. He made his way in the world just like a typical actor: a gossip, and frankly a liar and a coward; but, in spite of all that, a person who was funny and very talented. Even now I would with pleasure meet him and sit down with him, but unfortunately this is a wish that cannot be fulfilled—now he is lost to everybody; it seems he just died one day from the effects of a trivial boil on his nose. His photograph hung in the Bakhrushinsky Museum for many years— he was one of the first to play Lenin (or, at least, to do so in the provinces). One day we were together in a provincial town accompanying the representative of the All-Russia Theatrical Society, I. S. Deeva, to the railway station. Once the train had departed Aleksandr Semionovich dragged me off

Part 1

75

to the buffet. In his pocket was a salted cucumber, which he pulled out, showing me that he had some hard drinking in mind, then hid it away again. Having thrown back a few glasses we made our way to the theatre; but it was a lengthy journey and somewhere in the region of our hotel (I have forgotten its name, but not long ago P. I. Yakir spent his ‘exile’ there)* (* Written in 1975) we drank ourselves through all the money I had on me. Then Aleksandr Semionovich talked me into pawning my watch, so we could sit there for another hour or so, finally concluding the session with: ‘Right, it’s time for the rehearsal. I’ve got to go. You do as you wish—come along later, if you can.’ So off he went with the cucumber in his pocket. To go home seemed too depressing so I forced myself to follow him to the theatre. I was a bit late and wanted to go in without being noticed, but Verkhovsky’s stentorian voice stopped me in my tracks: ‘Vladimir Nikolaevich! What’s the matter with you? Why are you late? I give you a lot of rope, then you begin to take liberties in a big way!’ I still didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘dregs’, but I said something of the kind to him, slammed the door and left. We didn’t see each other for a week. I told everybody what had happened, and they all laughed. Evidently he was ashamed of himself however; he redeemed the watch and gave it back to me. On the whole he became a little afraid of me, and seemed to have made up his mind not to shout at me as he shouted at the others, especially after Larionov began to take some interest in me. Verkhovsky must have guessed that I was protected by a powerful person, and that that was the basis of my independence (I cannot say that I had worked out for myself what kind of protection it was). In front of Larionov everyone trembled; even after his suicide Verkhovsky spoke about him as though he were a hero of antiquity, and reminded us that he had bequeathed a new political term: ‘blockheadism’. One day Aleksandr Semionovich—grey-haired and imposing—held out to me in the hollow of his hand some nuts and said: ‘Here, take them, Vladimir Nikolaevich, they’ll do wonders for your sex life.’ He was no longer interested in women, and had not lived with his wife for a long time (we get to know everything in the theatre). In the past he indulged a weakness for cognac and vodka, but in recent years he has of necessity taken to drinking port wine with a particular kind of mineral water. Unintended puns and slips of the tongue on stage now happen much less frequently than before the Revolution, when plays were produced in a matter of days; no play nowadays gets less than a month of rehearsal, but it’s impossible to insure against them completely. In my very first season I had to play Dosuzhev in ‘A Profitable Place’. I had to come out with a phrase, which even in Ostrovsky’s time, I think, would already have seemed an anachronism: ‘Being already burdened with a large family, with some mem-

76

Part 1

bers…’ It didn’t go with the part; but I made an effort, lowered my voice, tried to speak it with articulation, and I played it in a melodramatic way, although I felt that Dosuzhev was simply a degenerate kind of person, surrendering to circumstances. Before the premiere I had a little to drink, although I rarely indulged in this way before a performance; but on this occasion, being a bit lit up, I hoped to find a truer feeling for the part. I began: ‘Being burdened with many members…’ It would have been better just to carry on! But I got it into my head to correct myself, just as the word ‘family’ jumped out of it, and I heard myself declining ‘members’ five times in almost all its cases. Misha Brylkin, a serious and experienced actor (and now an Honoured Artist) couldn’t stop himself from falling about, and he hit his head on a table as he began to shake uncontrollably. I cannot say exactly what was happening behind the scenes— but they were certainly rolling around with laughter. Only the audience remained entirely unperturbed. They accepted it all as a duty. On stage even the slightest change to the accustomed intonation in a partner’s cue causes stress and fright, and sometimes an actor will deliberately accentuate a phrase—which can lead to an incidental sub-text, or a diversion for the actor’s own amusement. In the play ‘Road to Freedom’ about Howard Fast I played a white farmer, Abner Light, who with great effort comes to realise that he has interests in common with the poor blacks. N. N. Raitsev, an actor getting on in years (the person who courted the costume mistress) played the leader of the blacks, Gideon Jackson. To us it seemed a long and boring dialogue. Raitsev did not change a single word of the text; but, with an expressive gesture, he pointed to a no longer young and very portly lady, Zoya Kosmodemianskaya, sitting at a piano offstage, and uttered a double entendre: ‘They have been ploughing a big piece of…’ (they have been having sex with a large woman). I was embarrassed, but had to respond with: ‘But whose is this land, right here, that you are using for pasture?’ And I wanted to go on and tell Zaitsev that the pianist’s husband was far away in Minsk, and that she had told me they have separated once and for all… My nerves seemed to be on edge as the hall went quiet. Actors waiting for their entrances behind the scenes also sensed something unusual and strained to listen. Fortunately I did not depart from my prescribed text, but when the scene had ended they rewarded us with stormy applause—they thought highly of my genuine emotion. Alas only actors of genius can, in their ninety-seventh performance, play their roles in so heartfelt a way as they did at the premiere… No longer in Riazan, we performed Rozov’s play ‘A Fortunate Time’ at the Moscow Youth Theatre, in which I took the part of Vadim. In one of the performances the actors started playing pranks. The management were not with us, and we knew that we would have to wait more than an hour for our

Part 1

77

train home; so there was time for us to try and outdo each other in improvised banter. Towards the end I tired of this and decided to play my part correctly and seriously. When the play had finished the assistant director came on stage to congratulate me—apparently, instead of saying ‘with you we go forward’ I had changed a letter in the word for go, making it ‘we f… with you’. This was a clear winner. A most experienced actor, Martini, when he was in the role of Ivan the Terrible (this happened in Makhachkal) in the self-flagellation scene came out with a great emotional outcry: ‘I am a farting servant’ (instead of ‘I am a stinking dog’)—at this point he clasped his head and groaned: ‘God, what am I saying!’ In a play about a collective farm, instead of ‘they will not elect you as chairman’ an actor came out with: ‘They will not chair you as an elector!’ His partner, not disconcerted, answered: ‘But perhaps they will chair you!’ (‘Horse my saddle faster!’—’And horse me as well!’) Of course, all slips of the tongue on stage are insignificant compared with the kind of criticism which I directed at the Soviet mentality and regime when I was in an intoxicated state. I think I got away with it for two contrasting reasons: firstly, they looked upon me as a mere strolling player and eccentric; secondly, I had played the part of Vladimir Ilich Lenin himself. The actor Baulin said: ‘If Freidin played Lenin, he would expect to have a car and chauffeur at the theatre door.’ Although I was constantly disturbed by government anti-Semitism, even such Jew-haters as our director Grazhdantsev, did not once denounce me; on the contrary, he made it clear that he would not let me leave the theatre for anything, and if necessary would stand in the way of the obkom. I said in answer to this that the obkom meant as much to me as my barber (the association arose from the fact that in Perm I actually went to the obkom premises to get my hair cut). It is possible that Grazhdantsev did not pick up on my capricious utterances because he considered the persecution of Jews his primary task and did not want to be distracted from it. His main victim was the actor Freidin (Freidinzon). Grazhdantsev in the middle of the season reduced his salary—Freidin was previously an operetta simpleton, but even there the rates were higher. Everyone knew full well that the theatre could not do without Freidin’s wife, Simochka Khoninaya, a very good actress; but nobody had stood up for the pair of them, and they themselves also made no effort to defend their position. Not embarrassed by my presence, Grazhdantsev, talking to Freidin, said through clenched teeth: ‘you can kiss my arse…’ I expressed my sympathy with the poor beggar by inviting him to have a drink with me…

78

Part 1

At meetings they were still condemning the American murderers spraying toxic bacteria in Korea, and once, when everyone stood up to commemorate the name of Stalin, I remained seated. ‘What’s the matter with you Vladimir Nikolaevich?’ asked our trade union representative Romanycheva in a frightened voice. ‘Nothing… This comedy bores me…’ Romanycheva flinched, but the others turned away as though they had not heard. Except Spasennikov, who thought it his duty to warn me: ‘You’ll come to a bad end, believe me…’ But I ignored all the warnings. Prison and exile I envisaged as cosy little numbers—as in the film ‘Generation of Victors’, where it was still possible to sit at a chess table. In the summer, when we were on tour in the oblast, I wrote on a coloured propaganda postcard entitled ‘Everyone to the Elections’: ‘Eda, I detest the Stalinist regime. Are you ready to follow me into distant realms?’ However strange it may seem the postcard reached its destination. The post woman, putting it into Eda’s hands said: ‘I’m not bringing you anything today!’ Eda grabbed a taxi and came rushing to me in Skopin. She sobbed on my chest and begged me to keep my thoughts to myself. But even her tears did not make me see reason. In that very place, Skopin, I stood in the town square and made a speech (of course, nobody stopped to listen) and ended with the words: ‘I didn’t compose anything like this nor do I give it my approval!’ Another time, in Ukholov, I got so drunk that I blessed and made the sign of the cross over passers-by. They had to use force to get me to the next performance at the theatre, but I fell on my knees and asked the question: ‘Are you really unable to recognise me?’ ‘Perhaps Jesus Christ can smell The fragrance of my forget-me-not…’ In the end even Grazhdantsev decided to retain me no longer—not because of the obkom, or of any other organisation—and in early August of 1952 I received my last salary from the theatre, swapped my downy feather bed and cushions for a litre of vodka, and lined up a farewell drinking session. Then I jolted back to Moscow in a taxi—I couldn’t wait until the morning! By two o’clock I had my arms around the most beautiful woman in the world…

Part 1

79

46. INTERNATIONALE In Moscow my behaviour was no better. ‘Show me where the SR party is around here!’ I demanded of those living at home. ‘These people—me as well—we’ve got to throw some bombs!’ They tried to get me to sleep. In the morning I smiled guiltily, meekly, and patiently listened to their reprimands. Eda and I went to stay for several days at the dacha of Air Marshall K. A. Vershinin, father-in-law of my army friend Volodia Zamkov—founder of ‘The Temple of the Feather’d Jade’. On the return journey Konstantin Andreevich proposed taking us home in his own car. For some reason we were forever being stopped along the road and ordered to show our propuski, although I think these officials knew well enough whose car it was and that the Air Marshal himself was sitting in front. I commented tactlessly on these roadside checks: ‘A slave requests documents from a slave…’ In vain Eda tried to put her hand over my mouth. I can’t say I didn’t understand how this was all going to end. Over the last few days before my arrest a premonition of irremediable trouble did not leave me for a moment—drunk or sober. One morning I took Slavochka for a ride in his pushchair, and feeling a bit sore, began to sing: With his hand Stalin gives you strength, Shows you the way… I couldn’t sing any more of it—something blocked my throat and I almost burst into tears. There were four of us on that fateful fourteenth of August—Eda and I, with Volodia and his wife; we took ourselves off to the restaurant ‘Savoy’. I kissed our little son and had a word with his nurse, and my heart tightened… We had a bit too much to drink, ate some shashlik, I danced with both the girls, declaimed ‘A Cloud in Trousers’. The evening ended, they put out the lights in the restaurant—the sign for us to go home; and then suddenly I began to sing the Internationale, in German. A woman at the next table commented: ‘He sings well, but what terrible pronunciation…’ I didn’t like being interrupted, but I continued. The lady began to discuss my pronunciation and again said how bad it was. I finished singing, and with a firm step went up to her table and said loudly and distinctly: ‘It’s not for you, you Stalinist scum, to teach me how to sing the Internationale!’

80

Part 1

Everyone gasped and jumped up from their seats. I turned around and went out, leaving my wife and friends in the room. I crossed the street and hid myself in the porch of the house opposite. Then, going up to the floor above, I glued myself to the window. But there were no pursuers; nobody appeared at the doors of the restaurant. Should I run? But where? Who on earth would agree to hide me? Eda suddenly came out onto the street, looked around, and indecisively crossed over to the other side, then I heard her voice in the lobby below. I responded. She came upstairs, and put her arms around me… The only thing I could do was to go back… I went into the vestibule. The militia were already there. I heard raised voices, then an angry outburst: ‘There he is, that’s him.’ I began to hit out at those faces, those ugly mugs—including the militiamen. They pinioned me, tied me up and bundled me into a car. Volodia appeared beside me and whispered: ‘Keep quiet, just don’t say anything, I’ll pay somebody to get you out!’ Down at the militia department they threw me on the floor, went through my pockets. I struggled to break loose, rolled about, hit my head on the floor. They began to question witnesses: ‘What did he say?’ But everyone seemed confused. ‘He said… He said… I don’t really quite remember what he said…’ Perhaps if I had followed my friend’s advice and remained silent I could have coped with all this—nobody could bring themselves to repeat my terrible utterance. But I didn’t remain silent. ‘So you’ve forgotten what I called you? Let me say it again! Stalinist scum! How could I not call you that, if you are scared to even repeat my words!’ ‘Yes, well, that was what he said…’ someone confirmed in a subdued voice. ‘He did say that.’ ‘Slaves! “Russian people, they are a nation of slaves, from top to bottom—they are all slaves!”’ I quoted, not mentioning the source. ‘Why are you so frightened? Who are you afraid of all the time?’ I felt that everything that could land me into trouble I had already done— a lonely hut, chess and a clear conscience would all be mine tomorrow… Suddenly I was overcome with terror. I saw and understood everything, I heard their words. Then in front of my eyes appeared a portrait of my ‘friend’ from long ago—Voroshilov, and I continued to speak, but now addressing him: ‘Shame on you for being frightened, Kliment Yefremovich! Or perhaps you do not see that everything is supported by fear and slavery? What will happen when your black day comes? Are you pinning your hopes on a slave?’

Part 1

81

Portraits of other leaders were hung on the walls and I spoke to them as well: ‘Are you afraid of a couple of Georgians?’ ‘Silence! Silence!!!’ Volodia Zamkov began to yell in a heartrending voice (generally a peaceful and restrained man). ‘You’ll end up in prison! Do you understand? In prison!’ ‘The whole of Denmark is a prison… a people’s prison…’ ‘You have been reading too many books! That’s all just fantasy!…’ I realised that I was really caught, that it was all finished. And I went on shouting and fighting until consciousness faded.

Part 2

47. IN THE REMAND CELL (KPZ) In the morning I regained consciousness and asked for the cords I was bound with to be untied—my arms and legs were numb. Released from my fetters, I was ordered into a little room. I turned to the officer sitting behind a counter and threw at him: ‘Do you really think I am going to say: I was drunk, that I don’t remember anything? If so you are mistaken…’ KPZ—it’s a cell with a grille on the window. A raised area half a metre above the floor was for lying on. For company—two men. The young one was cursing himself and reading Yesenin; the other, a ragged old codger, was already telling me that Lenin had ordered him not to shoot Kaplan so that she would live to see the error of her ways. Now ‘she’ was a librarian in the Butyrka prison. I had a headache and desperately wanted something to drink. I began to make a noise, to ask for water, but they didn’t give me any. Later they brought in some soup, smelling of fish. I gulped it down and felt better. They took me to a man in civilian dress, and I tried to explain everything to him sensibly—somebody had to help me in my state of bewilderment (not in the present circumstances, but in general). My confession was interrupted by the appearance of a young man, also in mufti: ‘Should I give him back his passport?’ ‘No, hold on to it, there’s something not quite right…’ They brought paper, pen and ink and asked me to set out my ideas in writing. Over several hours I wrote conscientiously—when again would I be offered the opportunity of unloading what was heaped up in my soul? …Why had they so cruelly made short work of the opposition? 83

84

Part 2

…Why was it impossible to soften the fate of the ‘military specialists’? They might have proved useful to us in time of war… and so on, and so on… Again they summoned witnesses; they looked at me reproachfully, perhaps they were even sorry for me. The devil only knows why I didn’t listen to Zamkov and keep silent; or why, today, I hadn’t opened my soul a little less in front of this officer in civilian clothes. Then, probably, I should right now have my passport and would have gone peacefully home… (In prison they consoled me with the thought that they might not release me after two months, that in this time they might collect more ‘evidence’ and imprison me again—and more likely not just myself, but this time with my ‘accomplices’. But in one day I had provided enough material to make it impossible for them to release me. Just let me be kept here until the death of our leader: material from the twentieth and twenty second party congresses might very well answer my questions—answers which are still being demanded!—and my life might have taken a completely different course…) One day in the foyer of the Bolshoi Theatre I met Nikolai Stepanovich Sazykin, Beria’s deputy. I knew him from our time in Perm, young looking, always smiling. He had a nice friendly wife, even a scar on her face did not spoil her good looks. During the war Sazykin saved me from the commandant’s office—I had insulted a patrol by calling them a load of policemen (a tsarist appellation), which resulted in my being shoved into some kind of black hole; but papa and Nikolai Sazykin came to the rescue. So, even now, might there be a way of getting around all this? I once asked Sazykin why were they not allowing Keres to take part in a chess tournament? Was it because he had played chess in the presence of Hitler? ‘If it were only chess…’ sighed Sazykin meaningfully. But in two years Keres began to play again—it meant they had forgiven him… So could they really not come to understand a person like me, who loved the ‘Internationale’ and ‘Varshavianka’?… 48. FRIDAY They brought me a parcel: smoked sausage, bread, tomatoes; but it all had to be left behind, because just then they took me to go for a bath somewhere out of town. The prison van was packed. I managed to get undressed but before I could find a bowl for washing they ordered me to get dressed again quickly. I was pushed into a ‘Pobeda’ car—with me in the middle flanked by a pair of skinny young fellows. I said that I would make a request not to be taken to my father; he had no connection with this affair and for a long time had not been living with us. They asked me where I kept my documents, medals, certificates of awards, diaries. I told them. It was already getting dark when

Part 2

85

we went through a large gate with a grille. The courtyard was like a well. The person on duty looked at my papers and exclaimed reproachfully: ‘You were born in Stalingrad! In that heroic city! Ai-ai-ai!’ A soldier without epaulettes led me up some stairs to the floor above—the stairs had a grille on one side; then corridors, carpeted at first, bare further along. My escort ceaselessly snapped his fingers or clinked his key against his belt buckle. Every now and again he stopped me and made me face the wall. We came to a particular room where I was ordered to undress. They felt my pulse, looked in my mouth, looked between my toes, ripped open my clothes, cut off the buttons, removed my belt, and afterwards told me to put my hands behind my back and again ordered me into the corridor—I had to hold up my trousers to stop myself from falling over. They opened a door behind which was a tiny empty room without windows. They pushed me in and slammed the door. I stood for a while. Then sat on the floor. I leant against the wall. I rested my chin on my knees. I lay down (but in this position there was not enough space to stretch out). I dozed off. They got me on my feet and once again led me along corridors. Again carpets. A big luxurious office. They sat me in a chair against a wall. An overweight young man was smoking a ‘Kazbek’ cigarette. I said that I regretted having struck the policeman. But in the restaurant I had not caused any material damage—I hadn’t smashed anything. But if it seemed to them that this was not the case then I was ready to pay for repairs. And if they were getting ready to prosecute me then, by the same token, I didn’t see any reason for holding me in prison. I could appear at the interrogator’s summons at any time, since I was not working. ‘Tell me, why for the past year have you not paid your komsomol dues?’ ‘We didn’t have komsomol members in the theatre, therefore there was no komsomol organisation. And I never had the opportunity of going to the raikom. In any case, because of my age I was surely no longer eligible to be in the Komsomol…. Is this really so important?’ ‘Tell me, do you not consider that your views are incompatible with Komsomol membership?’ ‘Perhaps, yes. Yes, yes! Exactly!’ Why didn’t I think of this myself? ‘So, will they send me for trial?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And they won’t allow me to remain at home until the trial?’ ‘No’ ‘Why?’ He inhaled, and reminded me that he was asking the questions. ‘A French Communist is held in prison, he doesn’t go to his trial from home.’

86

Part 2

‘Jacques Duclos? The only thing he doesn’t have in his cell is a microphone for addressing the people when he feels like it. Do they really cram him into such a small space that it’s impossible to stretch his legs?’ ‘French workers would not tolerate that’ he said. That’s exactly what he said, word for word! Later he asked who Sirmbart was. ‘She was one of our students.’ ‘Why did you write down her telephone number?’ ‘Just in case… Well, what of it… Perhaps to find out the time of the next rehearsal…’ ‘Tell me about her.’ ‘What is there to say? Only that we were acquainted, that Sirmbart is the family name of her husband, and that she and her husband are separated…’ He read out several more names from my notebook—Bark, Runge, Shtein, Maizel… Afterwards, recalling the interrogation, I noted that he only picked out foreign names. Why not all the other names and telephone numbers, Korobovoi, Vasilevoi, Glazunova…? ‘Have you heard the news? They have taken Lenin away from Moscow!’—he read out, looking at me, all the time grinning evilly—’Yes that’s right, now they are taking away all the valuables from the museums.’ I recalled that I had heard this joke at some point in the past, and not only heard it but had written it in my diary. Eleven years ago, at the beginning of the war. I explained to him that this was a satirical joke at the expense of the philistines… Still grinning crookedly he moved a large piece of paper towards him and began to write. He went on writing for a long time. Then he handed it to me. ‘Being, during the course of many years, anti-Soviet in my attitude’—his composition began—‘I have been constantly involved in anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda…’ And more in the same vein. ‘Have I really been saying that?’ ‘What is written here is the essence of what you have been telling me; these are your actual thoughts.’ ‘And have I got to sign this?’ He nodded. ‘Then why are you asking? If you yourself have composed the text? It’s all the same to me—I can even sign blank sheets of paper.’ ‘What were your relations with Volgorodsky?’ ‘What difference does it make what they were? Write what you like!’ He thought for a moment, then called in a soldier. ‘Take him away.’

Part 2

87

49. ALONE Since in the baths I never had a chance to wash myself, they gave me a drenching from a bucket of water at room temperature and again shoved me into the little room without windows. Late at night they took me somewhere downstairs. Again it was a room with no windows, but it was a little bit bigger and it had some furniture—there was a bed, covered with a cloth, a small table, at the foot of the bed a metal bucket with a cover. I asked a question, immediately they hissed at me: I was only to talk in a whisper! (Decidedly funny people these novices: they yell at full cry, they demand that you give them permission to telephone home—then, they get agitated, splash soup all over the place—can it be that they don’t they like it? You always know who’s a new boy in prison, there’s no need to ask: he is the one who gives way to despair and tries to smash his skull against the wall, who tries to work out what kind of skates he will buy for his son…) In the morning they wake me up, and my heart sinks with a deadly depression—asleep, I was oblivious to where I am, but now that I’m awake I remember… Walking to the corner of the street carrying Slavochka, entering that accursed restaurant; and how I didn’t want to give him to Polia… and Slavochka not wanting to be separated from me—he began to cry… Little, helpless… The ventilation flap in the door opens. ‘Get yourself cleaned up!’ ‘I don’t need to…’ ‘You’ll wash yourself and empty your slop bucket…’—all in a whisper. They bring some slightly tinted hot water, pour it out through the little shutter in the door, push through it a large lump of damp black bread, two and a quarter lumps of sugar, a bowl with some millet gruel in the bottom of it. And my parcel—sausage, tomatoes, bread—it’s here, it came to find me. Food cheers me up. If only I could go out to a toilet. But now it’s impossible, at six in the morning. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ ‘There’s the slop bucket’—only then do I cover the ventilator in the door. Yes, it would be better to put up with it, and not use the bucket. I want to go on leaning against the wall: ‘Don’t lean against the wall!’—the barking voice of a militiaman—’If you don’t like it, there are ways of breaking you.’ Deathly silence… Suddenly from somewhere could be heard: ‘Long live comrade Stalin! Long live the glorious Soviet chekists!’ The tramp of feet, and again quiet… Only somewhere there’s a rasping sound—a ventilator maybe?… Quiet steps, whispering, the ‘feeding troughs’

88

Part 2

are opening—dinner… Again a voice—a different one this time, highpitched: ‘When are you going to get drunk on our blood?!’ If I rest my chin on the palms of my hands, with my elbow supported on the little table, I might get stiff from cold trying to get some sleep; but now there is a knocking: ‘Stop that!’ The only thing left to me is to sit hunched up on my bed—if only my eyes don’t close… In the end, lights-out. What bliss! I dive under the bedcover, which is like an old grandmother’s shawl, and sleep immediately engulfs me—one-two— as though I were on a swing, and I am falling, falling through honey clouds… Now I am just beginning to dream—but precisely then they rouse me… (I didn’t know then and could not imagine that several minutes after lights-out they arouse those who ‘are insufficiently active in cooperating with their interrogation’). The second day—an exact repetition of the first… The third day… On the third day I began to pay attention to the voice of Zamkov. Later it suddenly seemed to me that Eda, with Slavik, were here in my cell. I wanted to shout: ‘My little boy, my little boy, why have you come here?’ But they are not here, I am alone… Only in my throat, tears… The walls are damp, brown, truly from Tsarist times. The stains of mould spread out in fantastic profiles, whole heads… I have decided to scratch a mark on the wall each day in order not to be totally struck from their account. But for what? I am waiting for the fifteenth of September—my birthday—I will run wild and batter my head against the radiator… On the fourth day, joy—they take me out for a walk. For five minutes I enjoy fresh air, hear car horns on the other side of hermetically sealed gates, even sense the footfalls and voices of people walking there, on the other side… After the little walk the air in the cell seemed insufferably foul, yet the door must have remained open all the time. All the same I wanted to smoke. But what can I do to keep myself occupied if I am not allowed to smoke? I go up to the ventilator to get rid of the smoke from there—the ventilator is slammed shut… On the fifth day they throw two books through the food shutter. I pick them up—‘Chapaev’ and verses of Inber. Dear ‘Chapaev’ from my childhood days! Papa and Mama used to read his stories aloud to me… True, I was very little then, and remember nothing, only the death of Chapai. Now I can make good and read it through. I open it—but between the covers there’s no Chapai, only a description of the building of a canal in Central Asia, somewhere like Turkmenistan or Ferganistan… Never mind, the important thing is that it is a book, I can read it, and not have to look at the wall.

Part 2

89

The ventilator opens and a voice whispers the Ukrainian ‘khe’. ‘Gusarov.’ (As though it could be somebody else!) ‘First name, patronymic?’ ‘Vladimir Nikolaevich.’ ‘Year of birth?’ ‘Twenty five.’ ‘Place of birth?’ ‘Stalingrad.’ ‘Nationality?’ ‘Russsian.’ ‘Articles?’ Yes there was a reference to something in the criminal code—when I was signing some papers… With difficulty I recall: ‘Fifty eight, paragraph ten.’ ‘Come, without your things!’—the whole dialogue in whispers. Again corridors, iron doors on both sides, clicking of fingers and tapping on iron buckles—like noisy cavalry spurs. Again the same carpeted office, the same interrogator. My escort reports our arrival, sits me against the wall and leaves. (Evidently I am against the wall because there is an inkstand and a paperweight on the table). The interrogator repeats the same questions that I have already answered in my cell: family name, first name, patronymic, year of birth… The whole room is bathed in sunlight. Probably it has all been checked and now they will release me. Of course I’ll have to listen to a fatherly admonition… Suddenly the interrogator shouts a command: ‘Stand up!’ A man of medium height, dark-haired touched with grey, enters. The interrogator reports something quickly and indistinctly; I can just make out that he addresses him as colonel (I think he must have been either head of the investigative section of the oblast MGB, or his deputy). ‘Ai, ai, ai…’ says the colonel. ‘Sit down… What is this all about? If something has not been clear to you for some time, then you should have contacted the relevant organs.’ ‘I did make contact. I wrote to Stalin. And Suslov. Even the Radio Committee—I did not understand if ‘Varshavianka’ was a work of art or not; and if it was, then why did they never perform it together with such things as ‘Amidst the Noisy Ball’?’ ‘Did they reply?’ ‘Yes. Only nothing changed: they still always choose revolutionary songs. The colonel looked at the interrogator and smiled enigmatically. The latter also began to smile.

90

Part 2

‘Carry on!’ commanded the colonel, and he left the room. We stood up to see him off. This time the interrogator handed me a biography of myself to sign, where I noticed there were no lies. At the end it was stated that on 14th August I caused an uproar in the restaurant ‘Savoy’, having called people who were present there s… v… (although I had not insisted on ‘bastards’, in my conversation with the interrogator I had suggested the more delicate word ‘dupes’; in any case he had not allowed these to be written down, and had substituted two initial letters). The text concluded with the following phrase: ‘After his arrest he also insulted the leaders of the Party and the government, in particular L. P. Beria and the leader of the people I. V. Stalin.’ ‘There’s no problem about signing this’ I said. ‘Everything here is true; and earlier I did consider myself an anti-Soviet element.’ The interrogator looked at me lovingly and this soothed me: there will still be time to refine each point, each word, more precisely. Then he summoned my escort, who lead me away. 50. THE MARTYR’S CROWN OF THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA The stress and despair of the first days steadily diminished. I somehow got used to my cell and way of life, and in my heart hope strengthened: no, I will not remain here for long. Surely they could not help but understand that if people are crushed and frightened you cannot hope to build communism, or fight for a brighter future! Those distressed people, not having the strength and fortitude to struggle, are forced to adapt themselves, and yet they remain silent… But how many will be able to carry on like that?… The Party must, must, gain some understanding and not depend on blind belief… Does Stalin really not understand this?… My immediate hopes rested, not on Stalin, but on Aunt Zina, although she exactly represented the apparatus that terrified me. Aunt Zina loves me, she will not begin to understand about whether I am right or guilty, but she will extricate me by some means or other. (That’s how she was at the time— everyone else just despaired, asking each other: how could he have done this? But Aunt Zina shouted out: ‘I know only one thing—he is there! In prison!’) Towards the end of August I again heard: ‘Khe!’ After all the questions and answers, the voice hissed: ‘And bring your things!’ I only had a few things—a lump of bread, which I managed to gnaw, and half a pack of cigarettes, which I shoved into a pocket. I put my hands behind my back and advanced along the corridor. They took me into a courtyard and

Part 2

91

loaded me into a car the colour of condensed milk, and later unloaded me near a big house with wide windows. A school, perhaps? In the courtyard there was a lot of greenery. Later, I sat in a room which had a counter, and talked with one of the guards for almost a solid hour—and he did not demand that I spoke in a whisper. Having a conversation with a live person, together with the sunlight that poured through the window, put me in a good mood. I tried to find out from him where I was; his evasive, but polite, reply surprised me, and made me happy. Beaming, I went into the hall, where behind a table sat a little old man with a grey wedge-shaped beard and wearing a professorial gown. And with him were some other people. The old man started to ask me some questions, and when listening to what I had to say cupped his hand to his ear. Breathing unevenly and trembling I told my story. I very much wanted to please the old man, who seemed to be sympathetic—he might help me. ‘Do you understand why you find yourself in prison?’ he asked. I was somewhat distressed to realise that, yes, this was also a prison—but what kind of prison, when there were no bars on the windows? In order not to antagonise him, I said: ‘yes.’ ‘Why are you so happy?’ ‘After sitting in my cell for two weeks, I am sure you would be glad to find yourself here’ I thought; but I said out loud something entirely different: ‘The Russian intelligentsia is accustomed to wearing a martyr’s crown…’ My body was being wonderfully bathed by the August sunshine. The professor (I later learned that he was I. N. Vvedensky) passed me over to a beautiful, slender, woman—Margarit Feliksovna—and she, having looked me over, pointed me in the direction of a fat, dull, lout with prominent ears. He ordered me to have a bath and put on a white hospital gown; then he allotted me a bed. It was only here that it was explained to me that I was in a special department of the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry, named the Serbsky Institute. There were altogether four wards in the department, with ten prisoners in each—some under investigation, some already brought to trial; and there were also those who had spent time in a camp. Sasha Ikkimovich, for example, they arrested as early as 1937. When he was summoned to attend the commission of investigation and it was suggested that he sat down, he answered: ‘I have been sitting down for fifteen years.’—and so remained standing on his feet. Seriozha Shevchenko was nineteen years old, an external student; they arrested him in April, and he received a sentence of 75 years—for the infringement of three different articles of the code; but the law is merciful, it does not permit incarceration for more than twenty-five years. That much

92

Part 2

they handed down to the son of the writer Mitreikin (the writer himself had long ago put an end to his life, after he had been stigmatised and his name lampooned; and, really, he did not have a life worth living). Sieriozha was a kind person, a trustful boy, sincere; only it was a pity he was a weak chess player. On the other hand he said that his wife, Albina, was a player of the second rank. But Albina wasn’t here; they had given her five years for not denouncing him. Sieriozha had saved her from a longer stretch by testifying that he had kept her under a regime of terror, and it was for this reason that she had not betrayed him. Sitting in a punishment cell, Sieriozha had contrived to burn her name on his skin—this was his third month at the institute. He admitted that both the ballerina Barotova and a student Natasha Kozina were named in his terrorist organisation. Seriozha was interested to know if I had not said, when I was drunk: ‘we must crush them’? No, I am convinced I had not said that, it was entirely against my convictions. The most dangerous expression that should be removed from the language is: ‘I took him in the mouth’. Sieriozha, with knowledge of the issue, explained what ‘in the mouth’ meant—it has political overtones, but is not anti-Soviet terror, only agitation; so I will receive a ten-year stretch. And he added mournfully: ‘But I do want to kill the Minister of Education Kairov…’ He told me about interrogations in the night, about having to remain standing in the punishment cell, until you were unable to exit from it on your own—your feet were so swollen that they had to drag you out. It is horrible to believe, but impossible not to believe—everything around us tends to confirm these accounts. The soldier Suvorov had wires pushed under his skin—he presses on it, and the shapes become visible. His sin: when he was at his post a fire broke out in his unit. The juvenile Zhuravlev limps—he urinated into his boots in forty five degrees of frost; he says, that he nearly died felling trees, and now he doesn’t have any toes… What happened to Misha Mamedov is unknown, you will get nothing from him; he talks a lot and what he says is very funny, but it’s all disjointed… Sasha Ikkimovich rubs himself with butter and goes around the ward naked above the waist, except on special occasions when he puts a robe around his shoulders; in the evenings he moans in a heart-rending way: Magadan lies before me— A tomb for the Soviet realm… —and he points into the distance with his right arm. And this is what I see here: among all these unhappy people there’s not one real villain, not one criminal; they were honest, decent fellows, good citizens. Not one of them has achieved what I have achieved with so much

Part 2

93

zeal, or banged his head against the bars; none has delivered speeches or drunken tirades; they have all lived humbly, studied, worked. Now I understood the enthusiastic smiles of my interrogator—perhaps I was the first and only person he had encountered, who actually said something. With the others it was simply character assassination… So it’s clear what happened to Pavlik Sedykh: he died, knowing nothing about his parents; and it’s the same with all those to whom I addressed my stupid questions. They all said: ‘There’s so much we don’t know…’ or even more clearly: ‘You can say a bit about me, but I would advise you not to say too much…’ A one-armed drunken fellow was accused of intending to blow up a pumping-house in Kaluga. But a regiment belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs guarded this building, and between two high fences ran a hungry sheep dog—and this ‘saboteur’ had already lost his right arm at the front… ‘Why did they accuse you?’ ‘This bitch, my wife… she wanted to get rid of me, so she could bring her fucking boyfriend into the house!…’ From his words it is clear—the pumping station means nothing to him, he’s not a dreamer, he thinks extremely concretely, he’s a practical man, a strawberry grower—even if that peace-loving terrorist Shevchenko one day shouted out: ‘You, saboteur, shut up!’ And then there’s Venka Soldatov (from Ivanov, apparently) looking just like one of Tsar Nicholas’s soldiers, with an opulent moustache—he’s a fine type of person, cultivated and well-read and is a short-wave radio enthusiast. He is accused of transmitting an unauthorised text. He would not enlarge upon his case, except to say: ‘there were microphones all around’; but he would sometimes whisper confidentially: ‘Stalin, Stalin! From the day of my birth that’s all I hear: the people’s Stalin, the leader in all the sciences, the father, the field marshal! Yes, it’s just what you want; you could even say that we already have communism…’ Yes, exactly my thoughts!… God, it’s as though I was born yesterday! And what can be done now? Something to get me out of here? But why must they let me out, and not Saltykov, who is ten years younger than me? He was the person who got hold of a rusty German helmet from somewhere, and then tried it on (at home!); but someone saw him through the window… And Karl Yefremovich Shneiderman in 1924 presented a bouquet of flowers to Trotsky on behalf of the members of the Bakinski Komsomol. How was he to know that Trotsky was a spy later on—even Kirov had embraced him on that day, and had driven him along the main street with his own hands at the wheel … Worker Loktionov had written some kind of confused letter to the Central Committee—a crank like me… A ragamuffin (I have forgotten his name) is here because, it is alleged, he had the intention of shooting Beria with a PPS gun. He never had any such intention, and the gun did not exist. He may have

94

Part 2

kicked his wife when he was drunk (so he said), but Beria means nothing to him… Appalled by everything that I had seen, and, in particular, heard, I stopped eating—without actually going on a declared hunger strike; although I realised that, even with a hunger strike or a demonstration of grief, you cannot put things to rights, you might just as well want to die. Incidentally, the food there was no worse than what you might expect in an ordinary rest home, so, from that point of view, I was unsuccessful in choosing a place in which to go hungry. For about five days I avoided food and only drank water from a tap. But just before supper one day a corpulent nurse with a nice face came up to me and whispered: ‘Come on, you must eat; and if we take you to the table you will be glad, yes you will not want to come back to this… However much you cry, however much you beat your head against the wall, however much you go down on your knees… But look, here in this place there are books, and games, and they let you smoke, and you can do what you want!… Come on, have something to eat…’ I obeyed and went over to the table. At suppertime, very obviously, two muscular medical attendants appeared and focused their attention on me. The nurse waved to them—well, at least we have got him to eat! They stood around a little, drilled me with their eyes and left. Under this establishment’s regime, nobody followed you around, you could do whatever you wanted; so at night I slept very little, and hung around in the toilet area. They allocated the seriously disturbed inmates to the same table at which Professor Vvedensky and ‘Queen Margot’, Margarita Feliksovna, had chatted with me. Our group was made up of doubtful cases—inmates with a ‘reactive psychosis’, i.e. those who were already ill when they went to a prison or to a camp (the majority, of course, were malingerers). Sometimes the apprehended person was so ‘resisting’ to investigation, that to bring him to trial was dangerous—he himself would demand expert examination, and this was awkward work for the prosecution, especially if it was ‘unplanned’, as it was with me. ‘This is an institute of world-wide significance!…’ whispered Venka in my ear. The hospital set-up did not deceive anyone, the white coats, the equanimity of the personnel, the good food. All knew that under the gowns were epaulettes. And they feared each other even more. If somebody caused a disturbance and they took him away to the isolation ward; various possibilities sketched themselves in the imagination of the prisoners: maybe he wasn’t actually in the isolation ward; perhaps he was walking around the town; or has taken some weekend leave, and was later going back to work— or back to the ward, or to the common room. They were afraid of some of the

Part 2

95

inmates, for example, Ikkimovich—he didn’t have a prisoner’s haircut. And he didn’t ask any questions about anybody—although he loved to talk a lot— and this they thought was skilful provocation. They were convinced that hidden in the curved ceiling of the toilet there was a sensitive microphone, and they spent a long time inspecting it—it did have a little light, which never worked. By way of an exception we had some really crazy people in the department. Vakhrameev, at one time head of a passport bureau, whispered to all and sundry: ‘Write a letter to Malenkov, say you have agreed to work. They need personnel. But stipulate your conditions. I demanded two months in Sochi and two thousand a month. I’ll find out more about it with the help of a few tricks and fiddles.’ He said the same to the committee, who did respond to him, said they were thinking about his proposal, although nobody noticed any of his tricks or fiddles, apart from those under his bedclothes. But he did commit one serious crime: when he was already receiving a pension he burst into the American Embassy one fine day and asked for political asylum—but he was unable to tell us on what grounds they were able to prosecute him. He could only repeat over and over again that people on collective farms lead a rotten life. The Americans evidently did not value this information highly enough and began delicately to show him to the door. ‘They will arrest me, just as soon as I get away from you lot.’ They expressed sympathy. ‘I agree to work for you with the help of tricks and fiddles!’ Vakhrameev enticed them. The Americans were polite, but unmoved—they suggested that he strolled around the embassy building (it was then still located in Mokhovaya), they showed him some pictures on the walls, expressed regret that Soviet citizens only rarely come to visit them, they even offered him hospitality in their cafeteria; but then finally said goodbye. They did arrest Vakhrameev—no, they seized him, with trembling hands, when he had scarcely left the grounds of the embassy. They were scared that he was somebody with really bad intentions; so they shoved him into a van and took him to the Lubyanka. Vakhrameev began to panic when they started to take an interest in his posterior—he believed that in this way they could look into people’s brains. Standing on a toilet seat the journalist Karl Yefremovich Shneiderman stammered an impassioned tirade: ‘This wh-whore… he wants n-n-nobody to trust anybody, he has gone out of his mind with the blood he has spilled, he fears everyone, and his subordinates exploit his insanity!’—But why this outburst? Was it spiritual illness or

.

96

Part 2

despair? Shneiderman had nothing to lose, he already had two lots of twenty five, so whatever they do to his spirit… I said that the leaders of the country are not man-eaters, but ordinary people. They don’t profit by their behaviour, everything they make use of belongs to the government. I defended my father, I was sure that he served them not for base motives, but from conviction. ‘My father dreams of ending his days as a waterman on the Volga…’ ‘Dreaming of working on the Volga? What are you on about!… Your father is one of the bosses, a banqueting lickspittle, and what am I?—a slave! A perpetual slave of Communism!’ ‘Shut it, …. your mother!’ ‘Don’t touch my mother, or I’ll smash your head in!…’ He used to tell us about death, about nights on frozen plank beds with his arms around a dead body—they responded on his behalf at roll call so as to receive an extra ration, he told us about the mass shootings… I grew rigid from the horror of it. Well, that’s how it was…Did you want the truth? That’s how it was… Take it, accept it,… And am I saying that they are not wild beasts? What about me? I was also fed from this trough… And doing what?—playing Lenin? Boozing on vodka? No, playing the buffoon… I didn’t hold back my tears, I fell on my knees in front of Sasha, I wanted to kiss his hands… He is a martyr. A people’s martyr… Sasha was from Kharkiv, they took him just because of one phrase which he uttered over a glass of beer in a club named after Ilich: ‘They promised to give land to the peasants; and that’s what they got— but just try and get back what you have lost in the process!’ The person who ‘identified’ him was not the person who denounced him—they protected the informant. Sasha escaped from the camp and managed to get some distance from it, but they caught him. They took him to a special area of the prison. He grovelled to his escorts and managed to avoid being shot; they just beat him, brutally. Somebody told how one escapee seized a guard’s German sheepdog by its open jaws and began to tear them apart, but the dog broke away and ran off. They got hold of this fellow, they tied him up and shoved him back into the camp; when the dog spotted him, it dived under a bench. Nobody had heard of any successful escapes; all the same Seriozha Shevchenko declared: ‘I will escape. It doesn’t matter, I will survive for two or three years, and then I will escape. I’ll dry some crusts of bread, hide myself in the camp itself or somewhere nearby, and, when they have stopped searching, I’ll get going…’ They were saying about Ikkimovich that if he sees a person carrying a rifle he will rush up and seize it and fling it on the ground. I have not observed such a scene, people were not carrying arms when I was around;

Part 2

97

but they tied up Sashka and took him off to the isolation cell, all because he wouldn’t allow them to cut his hair—that I did see. Once, brazen-faced, he said that he would beat me at chess. This was just laughable. When the time came for the game to take place he looked more at me than at the board, where things were working out extremely badly for him; suddenly, under his gaze, I moved a piece, without thinking, after which, in the following move, he checkmated me. However much I begged him to have another game, he flatly refused. On his chest the name Lenin was tattooed; he believed that ‘the Party might still rise up from its slumbers’. He often used to bring ‘Uncle Volodia’ into the conversation, but while he was alive he didn’t expect better times. ‘Later on people like me will be displayed in museums.’ It was just at this time that the Nineteenth Party Congress was being held in Moscow, but news of such an event was kept from us—the staff were well-disciplined. However, one way or another we heard that Malenkov was delivering a report, only we didn’t know whether the meeting had ended or was still going on. On one of the days of the meeting an electrician came to our section with a stepladder and began to do some work on the ceiling. Ikkimovich went up to him and asked him for something to smoke. He was given a packet of cigarettes, Sasha pulled himself up and dreamily pronounced: ‘Ah, there at the meeting, that’s the place to be having a smoke… that’s where the high command is throwing out its cigarette butts…’ The electrician laughed and let out a secret: ‘You’re a bit late for that—the meeting has finished.’ Ikkimovich—the old stager—did not turn a hair, and only when the electrician had left did he tell us the news. 51. A TWILIGHT STATE OF THE SPIRIT When my parents split up I refused to go on making use of my father’s car on principle; however, having met Botvinnik one day, I couldn’t help suggesting that I give him a lift. On my own I would rather have gone by trolleybus—‘to spite him’, but for the sake of a great chess player it was not a sin to make an exception just once and disturb Fediaev or Vlasov. I had to do something mad in order to straighten out my ideas, and I finally understood the essence of the matter. Suppose I were never to return to that bright world where Botvinnik is bouncing along with a thermos in his hand on his way to an international tournament, where Nelepp is singing one of Herman’s arias, where, in the Tretiakov Gallery, Ivan the Terrible is murdering his son—but also a world where my parents would face an unknown future, where the authorities might exclude them from the Party,

98

Part 2

chase them out of work, even put them in prison. But if the authorities admit that I am insane they will leave them in peace. They made this clear to me fair and square. Around us are the ‘reliable’ madmen. Misha Mamedov with a quick, springing, step; constantly, mindlessly, grinning, feeling himself with his hands, and repeating: ‘I am made of wood!’ Here it doesn’t do him any harm to do a mental somersault and with distress in his voice adds: ‘I am not talented!’ Some of the time he is convinced that he is stinking and dirty. Every now and again he confidentially tells people that he is personally acquainted with Shakespeare, and that he very much admires him—in Gorky they met in the hospital, and to prove it he reads out some of the sonnets in Marshak’s translation. Another occupant of our ward, Dioma, walks slowly, with feet wide apart, with a mad look on his face; when he sleeps he covers himself with a bedcover right over his head; he drinks soup with his lips against the edge of the tureen, the second course he seizes with his hands. Our nurse is sorry for him and, if she happens to be near him, feeds him with a spoon. If anybody, God help us, mimics him or teases him he lashes out violently. Venya Soldatov told me (whispering in my ear) that Dioma is completely normal, but is hoping not to be executed—in reality he was either one of Vlasov’s troops or a member of the SS. When they surrounded him he returned their fire, but a Russian bullet hit him in the groin and he went mad with pain. He recovered a long time ago, only you wouldn’t guess that from his appearance. Dioma has an iron will, he wants to live, and whatever they might do to him—they give him injections and twist and poke his tender wound—he puts up with everything. And although he entrusted his secret to Venka, Venka told me everything. When the three of us were together, Dioma looked at me meaningfully. But if he was nervous on my account, he had no need to be, it would never have occurred to me to ‘unmask a Hitlerite’ for the purpose of presenting myself as a patriot. In our section there were also several ‘silent ones’. Shneiderman called one of them a nihilist—the whole time he sadly and pensively shook his head, oblivious to the way anyone addressed him. Shneiderman liked asking: ‘Tell me, do you love Stalin?’ The ‘nihilist’, not taking his eyes off Karl Yefremovich, just went on shaking his head. Another silent one is Litus, a stakhanovite-machinist from Dnepropetrovsk. He was an ardent admirer of Krivonos, who was one of the first to be awarded the Order of Lenin for amazingly high levels of output. Although Litus didn’t say a single word about himself, his story was well known because he wrote it down. This is the gist of it: the portrait of Stalin on his steam engine became so covered with soot that it could no longer be seen.

Part 2

99

Litus, not short of some ready cash, bought a new one in a shop, painted in oils, showing the generalissimo in a full-dress coat; and he hung it in the appointed place. But an old worker took it down and threw it into the furnace. Litus’s assistant, a candidate for Party membership, reported this incident to the secretary of the local party organisation, who consulted the organs competent to deal with such matters. They decided that it was a terrorist act, and now Litus is threatened with twenty-five years. Then there was another fellow with a legendary face, who sang endlessly and terribly badly the same song while turning with his right hand the handle of an invisible barrel organ. Sometimes he would point with his fingers to those around him and shout: ‘I am the Devil!’ Once I held out to him an open book, he turned it upside down, looked at it for a long time, but not turning the pages, and then said: ‘Either I am reading it, or it is reading me—I don’t get the meaning.’ Afterwards I saw the ‘organ grinder’ through an opening in his cell door; he was detained in the isolator at the time. Catching sight of me he bawled at me maliciously: ‘Are you faking, you bastard?! Fake, fake, in the end they’ll realise you’re not crazy; then they’ll crush you! He should know, he had spent nine months in the institute. When they summoned Misha Mamedov to the tribunal, he immediately seized a pack of ‘Kazbek’ cigarettes from the table, and then grabbed somebody’s hat and dashed off with the cry: ‘This is my hat!’ Those looking into his case burst out laughing. Venya said of him that he was a real Kamo—the Armenian revolutionary who became a Soviet hero. His words were borne out by subsequent events. As a professional actor I felt far removed from these genial natural performers, who had never set eyes on a single book on psychiatry. But I never had occasion to see one either. I knew that I would not deceive the doctors. But… it was entirely possible that someone would save father. Why did they so quickly—two weeks after my arrest—get me seen by an expert? Perhaps all they wanted from me was the merest trifle so that I might play along with them and get released?… In our drama school it was impressed on us: ‘What you have to create is the image of another ‘I’ in each of various hypothetical situations’. I decided to take leave of myself. I spent nights in ‘parliament’ (as we called the toilet area), and towards morning I would crawl under my bed and begin to shout (not changing the words of ‘Julius Caius’ Starokhamsky): ‘Everyone to the Forum! Long live the Constituent Assembly! And you, Brutus, have you sold yourself to the Bolsheviks? Then you have sold yourself to responsible workers!’

100

Part 2

The major, a war invalid from Arkhangelsk, who had cut his own chest in the course of interrogations, lent forward and asked sympathetically: ‘What are you doing?’ I explained to him, confidentially, that I was obliged to remain under the bed, as this was the only place in the Soviet Union where a person had freedom to say and print whatever they liked. The situation of this invalid from Arkhangelsk was similar to my own. Coming out of a bar he had shouted: ‘Take me to this slut, I will kill her!’ Hanging around near the door the informer was curious: ‘To which slut?’ ‘What do you mean to which one? To the moustachioed one!’ What caused trouble for the major, in contrast to myself, was that he thought in terms of military categories (‘I will kill’), so that he received twenty five years—without any discount for being an invalid. They measured off twenty-five even for Volodia Davydov, a Moscow engineer who entirely by accident happened to sit at a table at which a secretary at the American Embassy, Mr Harvey, happened to be eating his supper. In the evenings, I would look at Moscow, blazing with lights, through the barred windows of ‘parliament’. I fantasised: ‘Do you really think that these are houses? They are just models. And in the window openings they have put indicator lamps under toy lampshades— just to make people think there really are people living there, that they haven’t yet moved them all out…’ One day I went up to the duty officer and began to explain to Saltykov and Shevchenko who were standing beside him: ‘He thinks that we are locked up, while he is a free person. All it means is that he is not guarded… But if he goes out onto the street there will be somebody else behind him, with a pistol in his pocket, and behind him yet another one, and so on without end. Even behind Beria someone is walking who is not subservient to him. Only the back of Stalin’s head is safe—he can do whatever he wants, publish Hitler’s poems, march in carrying the swastika… Seriozha Shevchenko and then Saltykov began to be included in my game. We went down on our knees, prostrated ourselves and prayed to God that He would punish the scoundrel Stalin. Sometimes I addressed myself not to God but to my own son, directing him to take revenge on my behalf. (I did not think about asking my father, you cannot demand the impossible). I sang revolutionary songs (at that time I did not know any songs from the camps, but the revolutionary ones expressed our mood perfectly well):

Part 2

101

…From our bones Arises our stern avenger. He will be one of us, but stronger! Suvorov would join in the song, and with a face both sublime and stern walk in circles around ‘parliament’ as though it were his prison cell. They brought in a young fellow from Zhizdra. His face was pale, drawn, but handsome. He told us that on his collective farm there was absolutely no grain, that famished mothers produced no milk, there was nothing with which to feed their babies. I wept when I heard what he had to say, but he with perfect calmness said: ‘We must hang all our leaders from the battlements of the Kremlin…’ Later they brought into the ward a thin fellow, who clutched to his chest several gnawed pieces of black bread. Hiding the bread in the drawers of a little table, the newcomer began to mutter: ‘Dubrov-camp… Vorkuta-camp… Rech-camp…’ and then tried to explain how one camp differed from another. The most terrible was ‘Rechcamp’—their prison numbers branded everywhere, they could only write a letter twice a year, many slept chained to their wheelbarrows. He was Vladimir Sergeevich Genishta, a communications engineer from Novosibirsk, a descendent of the composer Genishta (who wrote the song ‘Black Shawl’). Two years after the end of the war Vladimir Sergeevich, father of two little girls, appeared at his local Moscow Government Office and said: ‘Arrest me, kill me! I hate you all, I hate Soviet power, I cannot go on living…’ One of the officials looked at him and asked: ‘Comrade Malenkov was here with us recently. If you were armed, how would you have behaved?’ ‘I would have unloaded all my bullets into him, except the last; I would have used that one on myself.’ The chekist upbraided him for his stupidly irresponsible behaviour, said that he must not lose control of himself, that surely he was a good engineer and, looked at objectively, an honest Soviet worker. ‘You had an idea that if you came here, we would take you in. Well, let this experience show you that we only arrest real enemies, and not muddle heads like yourself.’ Then, using very calm and good-natured expressions, he convinced Vladimir Siergieievich to forget about the whole incident and go away and lead a peaceful life. And in fact, after leaving the building, Genishta felt easier and decided to reconcile himself to Soviet power. But two months later, on account of his intention to kill one of the leaders of the Party and the government, he was given a twenty-five-year sentence. At first he was assigned to the construc-

102

Part 2

tion department of the Moscow Government Office, but afterwards was sent to a mine at Vorkuta. Once there it wasn’t long before the operations supervisor summoned him and gave him a warning: ‘Genishta! You have been blabbing about the Katyn Forest affair; keep in mind that it’s hard just living here for twenty five years, but we can arrange things that will make it far worse for you!’ Vladimir Sergeevich doubted whether they could be worse; but the prosecuting official tried to reduce his anxiety, saying, yes, there were other places that were somewhat worse… Genishta heeded this warning and from then on tried to hold his tongue. But with us, of course, he shared his views: in Katyn Forest it was not the Germans who shot ten thousand Polish officers—no. I was doubtful about his hypothesis—under what article of the constitution were we obliged to rehabilitate Fascism? Or was it the archbishop of the church who had ordered it? Or Alexei Tolstoy? ‘Ha! Alexei Tolstoy! The author of that novel ‘Bread’! And an archbishop? What are you on about… Behind him there are millions of defenceless Orthodox Christians, how can we abandon them for the sake of a few thousand Poles, Catholics? Don’t you know how this is being done? This absolutely does not have Hitler’s handwriting on it! Hitler at that time was busy invading.’ ‘So, in your opinion, the Germans did not shoot them?’ ‘The Germans did shoot a lot of people, and Fascism is criminal. But don’t forget what we know the Germans actually did: Maidanek, Dachau, Osvenitsim, Buchenwald; hair, gold dental crowns, fat into soap, ashes for fertiliser—so methodical, so precise! And having such fine rules, suddenly without rhyme or reason to shoot and bury the Poles? Hitler was destroying the Jews and the gypsies, and the rest he used to suit his convenience—he made a whole army out of the Russians. Stalin, it’s true, created nothing from the Volga Germans… and later, why did the Hitlerite propaganda machine get involved in such a dubious enterprise as to build a Polish Catholic church next to the grave, and invite as witnesses neutral journalists, not entirely independent, but nonetheless witnesses—Swedes, for example—to view it? Most likely they didn’t invite the Swedes to Osventsim! No, this is the work of Stalin—it was impossible to ship this lot out to Kolyma in the Far East, so they were killed! It was the same in Riga, and in Minvody, and in Bryansk, every place from where they couldn’t evacuate the enemies of Communism…’ Genishta said a lot of interesting things about Vlasov and his army. ‘Their ideologues calculated that Russia would not be a Hitlerite protectorate for ever.’ Genishta himself wholeheartedly condemned the Vlasovites: ‘No, we must share in the fate of the Russian people, and not rely on foreign bayonets to change the regime. Up to now I have not said anything about what might bring Fascism to Russia; but if anybody could cause the destruc-

Part 2

103

tion of Bolshevism here it might be the Americans, with all their wealth—but there is more to it than that. The fact is it cannot be done! It’s impossible to support a system behind the back of Fascist occupying powers, or even of unselfish ones. Remember what the Bolsheviks were up to in 1917: to decapitate the army—the officers were still defending capitalists and landowners! Well, they got rid of the officers, and Kaiser Wilhelm’s forces trampled all over what was left!… What we need now is not revolution but evolution, and this is inevitable. Stalin the First is growing decrepit, quite noticeably—with all those pessimistic things he was coming out with at the meeting. As people are saying, he’s had two heart attacks, now we can expect a third.’ Like any camp survivor, Genishta knew a wealth of stories and legends. The hero of one such legend was the chief of the Tiflis gendarmes Colonel Polozov: The gendarme corps, it has now become clear, was founded with but a single aim in view—the ruination of Russia. But all its efforts would have been futile, were it not for Colonel Polozov. On the 28th November 1894 they brought to him a group of robbers who had been seized at the scene of the crime—an attempt to plunder the treasury, no less. For this purpose the perpetrators were using firearms, and there were fatalities on both sides. Colonel Polozov was not a bureaucrat, so to avoid a trial and all its consequences, he decided to deal with the whole group summarily—as the defenders of a working people later put it. ‘Makharadze. 25 years old. Orthodox.’ ‘Very good. Shoot him. Next!’ ‘Kandalia. 28. Muslim.’ ‘Muslim? Send him to Mahomet.’ ‘Petrosian. He’s a Gregorian. 20 years old.’ ‘I know that ugly face… Get rid of him!’ Finally they bring in the last of the robbers. An awkward, redheaded juvenile, with a pockmarked face and frightened eyes, pulling at his nose with restless fingers. The colonel turned his attention to the form in front of him: Tiflis Ecclesiastical Seminary. ‘So, you are a seminarist? Family name?’ ‘Dzhugashvili…’ ‘Dzhugashvili? Not the son of Vissarion Ivanovich? Yes! Good, there’s nothing to be said to you, the son of a church elder—but in the company of bandits! Is this what they are teaching you at the seminary?’ ‘I won’t do it any more…’ ‘This is a straightforward matter, you are not going to do any more of this… Really, the only thing you can do is to go in search of Judas in hell and reject the thirty pieces of silver that he offers you…’ ‘What are your orders regarding the seminarist, your Excellency?’ ‘Give the young sprat a good hiding and send him off to his mother!’

104

Part 2

They led the seminarist out; sniffles and sobbing sounds, and then the tramp of feet, could be heard outside the building; finally all was silent… On the 30th November the Rector of the Tiflis Ecclesiastical Seminary expelled Dzhugashvili Iosif Vissarionovich for unreliability. ‘But Polozov! What a blockhead!…’ exploded Seriozha Shevchenko. ‘What have you done to us, you idiot!… Poor Russia—not to have punished the very person who should have got it in the neck…’ ‘There we are, me and my mate…’—Genishta is saying—‘at the Vorkuta mine, hauling-hauling the tubs, and we will completely exhaust ourselves, we groan: ‘Hey, Polozov, Polozov!…, and they are also groaning at Kolyma, hungry and frost-bitten, and the grey-faced occupants of Butyrka and Tsentralka are groaning, tormented victims of the Lubyanka, the dystrophics of Norilsk and Ekibastuz, the army commanders and professors, peasants and workers… Polozov! How could you, how did you have the nerve not to shoot this despicable red-haired seminarist right at the beginning of his journey?! Don’t you understand that Russia has still not recovered from this calamity!…’ ‘Look at England!’ says Genishta on another occasion, ‘She has survived the collapse of the greatest empire in the world without a single shot being fired!’ Without a single shot?—I thought about this. In essence, yes. The conquering country modified the system and avoided war. But Frenchmen had to defend themselves in Vietnam and Algeria, and the Dutch in Indonesia; while in London, just as it was five hundred years ago, they’re still trooping the colour at Buckingham Palace… ‘Regardless of the inexorable rules of history’ Genishta commented. No, I could not agree with that. Capitalism is doomed. It was with our blood that the allies defeated Hitler. Stalin is not immortal, but Lenin’s achievements will live forever. ‘You don’t worry me!’ I cried. ‘I am a Communist by conviction!’ ‘I am not hoping to convince you right now,’ answered Vladimir Sergeevich, ‘but something will lie there in your heart. Achievements come and go, even English traditions are not eternal.’ Conversations with him became a necessary and pleasurable part of life for me, although at times we both became quite agitated. He did shout at me once when I said that for a Jew life is all the more difficult in a camp—and so drawing attention to the fact that he was a Jew, something he did not want to admit. He was eager for life, as far as I could tell; but he feared the administration and other inmates. Thieves love to listen to stories (in camps people who nick books win a lot of respect) and Genishta could endlessly tell stories and recite poetry—a lot of them I heard for the first time. He remembered all the congresses, all the political speeches, some of which he could quote from memory, and often repeated the words of his uncle, a military specialist:

Part 2

105

‘You cannot imagine what terror the Bolsheviks will unloose sooner or later.’ His uncle used to say this, even at the time of the civil war. ‘Why didn’t they do so in the twenties?’ ‘They still didn’t have the power…’ All the same, Genishta did have some positive feelings about Lenin. While he was in the process of founding the first socialist government in the world Lenin once saved him from a flogging. His mother already had the strap in her hand, but just at that moment someone shouted: ‘Lenin is here!’ and everybody rushed to the railway station. The leader’s car had broken down and he had to wait for a suburban train, making use of the enforced delay to chat with the locals. 52. THE COMMISSION Now they summoned me to a commission, having held me in the institute for more than three months. The director, Buneev, chaired the proceedings. Behind the table sat: Vvedensky in a grey cap, university reader Lunts, ‘Queen Margot’ and my interrogator in the uniform of a major—now I knew that he really was a major. I began by saying that I realised why they wanted to put me in prison. It was simply that—to the best of my ability—I had been expressing my alarm about of the fate of the revolution. I said that in general I was a humble person, even though I had played Lenin on the stage, but I had lived in a communal flat, and had not demanded that they treat me any differently. The major noted, languidly, that I was an average actor, and that nobody was ever prepared to give me any privileges. At this point Buneev suddenly spoke up: ‘You are a drunkard! What did you write in your diary? A lot of rubbish—coffins, skulls and filth, any amount of filth!’ ‘But this was an adolescent’s diary…’ I began. ‘Adolescent? As though you are any better now! You are no better now! You tried to poison yourself! All this is just affectation! On the stage you have to play a part, but not in real life! You haven’t achieved anything on stage…’ then unexpectedly he asked: ‘Do you like Soviet authority?’ I completely lost my head, forgot all the speeches I had prepared and just looked blank, tears welled up in my eyes. They let me leave the room. After recovering my composure somewhat, I went to a doctor, a Lithuanian woman with a sad expression, and said: ‘What kind of a professor is this Buneev of yours? He is a real bastard. He was reading things out to me from my diary which I had written in year seven at school. He must have been that age sometime in his life—is he writing another ‘Anti-Dühring’?’

106

Part 2

‘You will think differently about Buneev in the future…’ the doctor replied. I understood that one way or another, the end to my stay in the ‘Serbsky’ was approaching. I was so used to its wards, to ‘parliament’, in which I was forever making speeches, and which I cleaned for five rolled cigarettes (sometimes the nurse gave volunteers a spare cutlet). The work was uncomplicated—chase everyone out of the toilet, flush the lavatory pans, splash a pail of water on the floor, make use of some cleaning rags, and then not allow anyone back until it was all dry. If anyone burst in I would try to douse him with water, and this game kept us amused. For the three months spent in the institute I significantly enlarged my repertoire, basically on account of Genishta, and now they were predicting for me a light sentence in a camp (if indeed I was going to one). In the meantime a newcomer joined us, a reticent, serious fellow from Siberia, with a Jewish name and a handsome face. Having heard about my tendency to make speeches, he told me, without any beating about the bush: ‘I can see straight through you: in order to save yourself, you’ll fall on your knees, lick their boots and beg them to have mercy!’ He didn’t talk about his own circumstances. I had a feeling that my ceaseless ‘entertainment’ really got on his nerves, but I couldn’t stop—although they regularly gave me chloral hydrate and some other substance to drink to calm me down. But medicines were no match for my terror at recollecting solitary confinement in the cellar, and I chattered nonsensically almost without sleep. ‘They will not want to hold the son of an ex-Secretary of the Central Committee in a camp’ said K. E. Shneiderman, ‘a camp is like the wireless telegraph, and you are a loudmouth. It will be more peaceful for you here in the hospital with this gang—better stay here, without any more questions being asked…’ When nurse Alla lead me out ‘with my things’ I felt depressed, and said that it was good for me being in the Institute. ‘In the hospital it will be even better,’ she whispered. ‘There they have a cinema and volleyball.’ 53. ONE FLOOR HIGHER Outside it was really winter, and I shivered in the ‘raven’. I was wearing my best going-out suit, but it was falling apart at the seams. They brought me right back to where I had come from, to the Little Lubyanka; but on this occasion they put me into communal cell No.17 with a window just below the ceiling—through it I could just see the guards’ boots. Compared with my previous situation, this was clearly a ‘promotion’. And the best part of it was

Part 2

107

that I was met by the welcoming face of Shevchenko. Relations with the other inmates here were also completely different. Washing myself in the shower I gave a rendering of almost my entire repertoire, beginning with I never found out who I was… Mama, why did you bring me into the world, Better had I not seen the light of day!… (From ‘Interventions’ by Slavin) and ending with To help the excluded, the oppressed, Stand next to them! Go to the tormented, or to the humiliated, They need you there! The guard listened to it all tolerantly, even, I thought, with some pleasure. True, when I sang: And finishing the song We shout to all of Presnya: Lord Curzon—let’s punch your ugly snout, But to Rykov—greeting! —the door opened slightly, and he asked apprehensively: ‘What on earth are you singing?’ ‘Well, I don’t know any other songs, and I don’t want to know any other songs!’ I answered brazenly. Apart from Seriozha Shevchenko and me, our cell also housed a middleaged Tartar fellow and a young Mordovian, who conversed between themselves in the Tartar language. The Tartar was a real patriarch, but boasted that even now, on prison food, without fermented mare’s milk and horsemeat, he would still be able to serve three young girls, to a bad end—or one girl three times. The Mordovian was so emaciated that he couldn’t remember anything about women. They were both doing twenty-five years—on account of the fact that they had spent time in German captivity. Genishta used to tell us that members of the KGB used to come to camps for displaced persons in the west in order to have heart-to-heart conversations with the inmates, even offering them vodka. It often happened that an exprisoner of war doubted if it was worth returning to his homeland —’They might think of me as a traitor, but I was with the Germans in a mine-clearing unit. What else could I do? It was the only way of saving myself from starving to death; I might blow myself up on a mine, but at least it would be

108

Part 2

quick…’ But a good chekist-patriot would uncork a bottle and try to put people’s minds at rest: ‘But Vasia! What kind of traitor were you! This was the fate of millions, it was an elemental whirlpool; people are never going to remind you of this!’ They brought along placards: an old man stands in a sea of wheat, his useless arm hanging at his side; while with the other, as though it was the peak of his cap, he shields himself from the sun and gazes into the distance. Under the placard is the inscription: ‘Come back, brother, we await your return from Fascist tyranny!’ There was an issue of Pravda in which Stalin has a conversation with a foreign correspondent: ‘Not one hair will fall from the head of a returning prisoner, this is something the Soviet government guarantees.’ For long afterwards returnees searched for this issue in their camp files, but could not find it. It is not even in the Lenin Library. Evidently it’s not being kept there… Both the Tartar and the Mordovian had been brought here from a camp for the purpose of giving evidence, and so were able to enjoy some respite… Life in our cell was quite tolerable. Siriozha and I played chess—the board was supplied for us, while the chessmen we shaped out of bread. But we would often not find them after returning from exercise, and would then have to start again. Of our near neighbours, V. Cherepanov was clearly mad; he shouted all the time that he was going to hang himself, that he was unable to put up with his hunger, although in fact he received a good ration of food. The guards laughed at him, looking at his fat cheeks shaking with anger. Routinely, someone in his cell would be unable to put up with his shouting, and would strike him on the back of his head to silence him; but it wasn’t long before he started up again. Very early one morning they brought in a flaxen-haired miner from Stalinogorsk. He began to tell us his story: one evening they had taken him from his shift, and the same night transported him here in a prison van with a guard on either side of him. ‘What for?’ ‘I don’t know… Perhaps, in the village somebody died… One day I made some home-brew for a celebration—for myself and some guests; only family people took part, and just my father-in-law and godfather from the peasants—it’s those two who must have informed on me. I had already done a year inside; but then I went back home and brewed up some more hooch and invited the two of them over to my place again. I didn’t know which one might have shopped me, so I hit both on the head with a three-litre bottle— just to remind them. Then I went off back to the mine at Stalinogorsk.’ `‘No, friend, it was not because of that. Try and remember something about a counterrevolution.’ ‘Counterrevolution?’

Part 2

109

‘The Lubyanka is not interested in home-brewed liquor. Perhaps something happened in the mine?’ ‘A little while ago the coal-cutter stopped working for two days…’ ‘Surely it’s more true to say—there was sabotage, economic counterrevolution…’ ‘It’s not my fault it broke down…’ ‘These things will be investigated at the mine. There’ll be technical experts.’ Before breakfast this ‘worker-peasant—saboteur-hoochmaker’ went on talking about his godfather; then at ten o’clock he was summoned ‘without his things’, and did not return until three o’clock—pale, haggard, next to dead. ‘What did they charge you with?’ With difficulty he began to list the articles, among them was 58, 1-6. ‘Friend!’ the Tartar and the Mordovian joyfully shouted out, ‘Weren’t you in a prisoner-of-war camp?’ ‘Yes I was. I’ve never made a secret of it…’ His comrades, because of his misfortune, sat this new ‘traitor’ down in a corner and began to give him a lecture: ‘Don’t try to prove things the interrogator tells you—just agree with him! If you try to disprove a single thing he says, you will make him very angry and you’ll end up in some god-forsaken hole. But make sure you don’t involve anybody else—don’t swallow the bait.’ Now all three of them sat for hours whispering together like a close-knit family, united in their criminality. But they hadn’t committed Hara-kiri like Samurais, they hadn’t shot themselves like the sniper-‘cuckoos’ from Finland. Scared, without directions, without cartridges for their guns, abandoned and demoralised, they soon found themselves in German prison camps along with the other squads, battalions, regiments of humanity. There they did not live like the French, the Belgians, the English and the Americans, fed with parcels from the Red Cross; they did not live even like slaves—slaves as a rule were treated better. Are Soviet camps any different? In ours you will have to hold out for longer; but at least the commands will be easier to understand… These prisoners were not militiamen or leaders, they just pushed wheelbarrows in quarries; but just by doing that they were ‘objectively’ helping the enemy. When they eventually exchanged turnip soup for balanda, that horrible concoction full of rubbish, the hardiest (those who stayed alive) found themselves still working as slaves, but labouring now for Stalin. To have taken part in a camp uprising in Germany, or to have joined a partisan unit, would have been of no help to these ‘traitors’; the main evidence against them was obvious—they had managed to stay alive. They composed such lines as:

110

Part 2

Land of your birth, If I die in the battle, The Party will keep warm Your old ones—and your mother! Or: In years of danger the Motherland Sent her sons to their death. Worthier she would have been, Had she herself died for her children.

54. TAGANKA—EVERY NIGHT FILLED WITH FIRE They summoned me ‘with my things’ and once more took me somewhere in a ‘black raven’—I had the same clothes on and was freezing. They took me to a Palace of Culture, shoved me into a tiny room like a box—they gave me nothing to eat, nothing to drink… I went on singing songs, reciting verses until, exhausted, I fell silent… From somewhere I seemed to hear the lowpitched sounds of a bass-accordion… Perhaps it just seemed to be there but was not in reality… They took me out, inspected my anus again, crumpled and roasted my clothes to sterilise them, studied my boots, then sat me in a revolving chair to get full face and profile photos of me—all according to the rules of the prison department—and once again locked me in the box. I began to knock on the door—at first they opened it for a moment, then they kept it closed. There wasn’t a spy-hole. I began to beat my head rhythmically against the door in the hope of losing consciousness… At the end they opened it, gave me a spoon, a bowl, a bedcover and took me to a cell with two very long iron beds—each of them hardly long enough for two prisoners, but with plenty to spare for one. A dark-haired fellow woke up and began to ask me: who was I, where from, under what articles had I been charged. I answered cautiously and in a confused manner. ‘Well, I really frightened you, Gerasimov!’ my new neighbour said to me scornfully. In the morning it became clear that he himself had grown up in camps and prisons, and felt at home there. When he was free they would not give him a propiska to live with his caretaker-mother because he was a recidivist; but he can look the Soviet people straight in the eye, because he is just a common criminal, certainly not some kind of politico-‘Fascist’ like myself. He was Nikolai Kazakov, but went by the nickname ‘Black’. He was at the time a

Part 2

111

witness to a prison fracas. This was about some thieves, headed by a certain Shakhmatov, who were terrorising the whole of his communal cell, taking away food rations and parcels from ‘muzhiki’ (‘muzhiki’—embezzlers— those who obtained a supplementary income from illegal activities). Brought to despair, these ‘muzhiki’ had informed on the Shakhmatov gang to a prosecuting officer. Shakhmatov, playing cards, had remarked: ‘When the Americans will arrive—we’ll hang Yoska Stalin, and we’ll beat up the chekists…’ Certainly they had no use for the high authority of either Yoska or the chekists in this social environment. They started their own investigations. As a witness Kazakov stated: ‘I didn’t see or hear anything of the kind, I was playing cards…’ When I gave an account to Nikolai Kazakov of my involvement on the fringes of this affair, he thought for a long time, then awarded me a not-guilty verdict: ‘You didn’t shout much—Shakhmatov didn’t hear it; it’s not done him any harm…’ From morning to night ‘Black’ was occupied with the criminal fraternity’s business—he wrote out messages on tiny pieces of paper, sent them on their way secretly, unravelled socks for making ropes, extracted lath from wooden bins, forged personal documents, knocked on walls, and, when necessary, cupped his hands like a megaphone and trumpeted loudly a coded signal to which his neighbours would reply in kind. Across the toilet Kolka Kazakov communicated with other groups of prisoners, and even managed to acquire something to smoke, as well as white bread, margarine and sugar. And he sang outstandingly. Most of the singing voices there were inspired by Utesov or Bernes, but tinged with gypsy melancholy. The songs themselves were rather arid in spirit. Worshipping colourful phrases, Nikolai even adapted one of my songs: I eat bananas and drank coffee in Martinique, Smoked some evil tobacco in Stamboul, In Cairo, brothers, I was chewing dates His own songs had a beautiful sound to them: Oh, give me a room of my own I will put a screen around her… Oh, give me a glass of poison, I’ll drink it down and die… I took part in some improvised concerts, and, having performed ‘The centuries pass, but ever great is the power of love’, with percussion accompa-

112

Part 2

niment on one of the heating radiators, I was rewarded with a noisy ovation from the crowd of petty criminals. From the time we woke up to lights-out the air was full of catcalls and slogans: ‘Long live granddad Kalinin!’ shouted Nikolai ‘Kutuzov’ with a nasal voice, and the whole crew backed him up with: ‘Hura-a-a!’ ‘Long live comrade Shvernik!’ ‘He-e-e-lp!’ The kind hearts of the robbers and other criminals remembered grandfather Kalinin, and celebrated the eighth anniversary of the 1945 amnesty. But there was no amnesty in Shvernik’s time, although 1947 afforded a sufficient reason for their being one. For a long time before the Party gave its instructions on the subject, incarcerated criminals honoured Lenin’s birthday, not the day of his death as did other Soviet citizens. On the 22nd April the roofs of the Taganka echoed to the shouts of: ‘Long live Grandfather Lenin!’ ‘Hura-a-a!’ the high voices in the prison joined in. However, among them was an elderly prisoner who didn’t wish Lenin ‘good health’ in a vague kind of way, pointing out that there was no health thirteen years after a death. But he went beyond that, insisting that Lenin was still alive; and he proposed a toast, with a glass in his hand: ‘To the health of Lenin and Leninism!’ The prison administration was worried about the ideological training and the moral-political level of development of young delinquents. Special educationists brought them illustrated magazines. In the camps they were given the chance to study, and were fed decent food; so they became ‘fat faces’ mocking the ‘Fascists’ and the ‘Anarchists’ (‘Anarchists’ were those who did not acknowledge the honour code of thieves) as well as the guards themselves. They, for their part, ignored the youngsters, who were frightened and desperate, and who could be forgiven—even for political immaturity. In the Taganka more than once I heard the cry: ‘Long live grandfather Truman!’ And the others joined in harmoniously. Admittedly, Eisenhower was already being mentioned, but changing a custom is not easy, and Eisenhower was hard to pronounce. Kolka Kazakov straight away took a liking to my trousers and for a long time tried to talk me into swapping them for his: ‘How come you were given trousers like that? You didn’t win them playing cards! They will take them off you as soon as you move from here!’ ‘If I had yours on they would still take them from me.’ ‘Ah, you can tell them that the expensive ones have already been taken!’ ‘Yes, that’s what I’ll say: these trousers have already been taken!’

Part 2

113

He insisted that he had promised a distribution of the ‘robber’s dividend’—until my relatives began to transfer money into my account, I couldn’t make use of the prison shop; but no way was I going to give in to him. Convinced of my extreme stupidity and, more importantly, my stubbornness, Kolka resorted to threats, and called me Pederast Moiseevich and Dill Tomatovich. Several times he grappled with me, hoping to get hold of the trousers he desired, but I was able to beat off his attacks. After about five days they brought in from the sick bay a massive roundshouldered elderly man, Volf Izrailevich Goldin, so there were now two of us ‘Fascists’. Kolka, it is true, still tried to jump on me, but Volf Izrailevich began to knock on the door, and these skirmishes ceased. Taking advantage of our numerical superiority we could sleep peacefully after the happy exclamations from our thieves’ kitchen: ‘Sleep well, thieves and riff-raff! Anarchists and Fascists, suck my c…k!’ 55. BALASHIKHA PRISON So that his fellow workers should not ruin their tongues trying to pronounce the first parts of his name, Volf Izrailevich Goldin from a young age had begun to call himself Vladimir Ilich (the first parts of Lenin’s name). But in 1949 they forced him to renew his official national name in his passport, the one that now sounded unfamiliar to him. Volf Goldin worked as a production manager of the Saltykovka tin ware factory and for eight years had lived in the town in his own little house with his wife and son. (His sister was a radio announcer). Both the factory production and citizenship aspects of his life were in perfect order. He was a competent, self-assured person, a member of his community soviet. His impressive figure, determined look and complete absence of mental instability commanded universal respect. Sometimes he liked to amuse himself by going to Moscow, sitting in a restaurant, drinking some good wine, eating a large steak and visiting a long-acquainted but wellpreserved lady friend. Occasionally at his house in Saltykovka he would not say no to downing a litre of wine in the company of a work colleague, and might then take him home. Volf Izrailevich did not take a great interest in Alexander Blok, or in Sholom-Aleikhem. There in Saltykovka a female dentist and a surveyor, both Jews, began to build a house for the purpose of sharing it between themselves. But the property was inadequately divided, and a messy dispute began. They decided to invite several people, considered by both of them to be equally competent, to sort things out for them. The arbitrators (among whom was Volf Izrailevich) met in the dentist’s flat just once, reached no conclusions in their deliberation, and went home. But several days later the police took them all into custody, apart from the dentist, and an engineer who was Russian. Gold-

114

Part 2

in and two others, Balanter and Goldskenar, were accused of being in breach of Soviet law by ‘creating a government within a government’, and the investigation went on for two years. Only to put an end to his night-time interrogations, Balanter admitted that he used to listen to the BBC; and his interrogator made use of this confession to find out who else might have been receiving anti-soviet propaganda. Goldskenar confessed that he had buried some gold in his garden. In relation to Goldin they found some terrible evidence: one day during the war, he read an article in the paper about a partisan, who had captured several Germans, and Volf Izrailevich had dared to express some doubts about the veracity of this report. And, quite recently, he had said to an acquaintance that he was not prepared to see on television, yet again, ‘Marriage with a Dowry’—‘I am not an eight year old, like my son.’ This was a ‘libel on the Soviet people and the collective-farm system.’ (‘Marriage with a Dowry’ was a play about a collective farm. A female shock-worker sees Stalin in a dream, and some old men say with awe: ‘You must be a very good person to have had a dream about Stalin’). To this accusation yet another was added—that of being of Jewish nationality. Divorced from his Russian wife, Korvin-Krukovskaya, Volf Izrailevich had married a Jewish woman; and, apart from that, had on one occasion bought tickets for a Jewish theatre performance (not wishing to disappoint the distributor). I was glad to have Volf as a companion for some good conversation. Kolka Kazakov, on the other hand, could only sing. On a prison walk he might suddenly launch into a rendering of ‘The prison guards’: ‘Tomorrow in the morning I leave Presnya, My journey’s end—Vorkuta… ‘Don’t worry, duty officer, everything is paid for! ‘Under guard, there’ll be heavy work to do; Who knows, if death will come my way!’ In his cell he liked to read Panas Mirni, and from time to time would come out with: ‘Oo-oo-oo, you pederast, you disgraceful bitch, you need to be f….d in the mouth!’ after which he would get down to reading again. Sometimes Kolka takes to swearing an oath to Lenin that he’s going to begin a new life: ‘Life’s a bitch, Vladimir Ilich, life’s a bitch, I’m sinking in the mud, I’ve got to give up thieving! But, you know, they didn’t put me in prison for no reason… I was going along, not disturbing anybody—I had given them my third signed statement about going out on probation—then I look down, and

Part 2

115

there on the ground something is shining—I wanted to lift it up to have a look—suddenly they grab me by the arms—it was a Finnish hunting knife— those bastards had planted it themselves…’ ‘Do you know’ Volf Izrailevich said to me, ‘I didn’t believe in the Stakhanovite movement even when I was young. What does it mean that Stakhanov set a record? And how many other people have cooked up records like this? It’s not real labour—under the glare of flashbulbs… It’s a cinema for fools…’ ‘Why have they got you in here?’ he began on another occasion, ‘It’s stupid. Now that you are here, they can undermine your faith in your parents, relations, friends… It’s irrational…’ I made the comment that his own incarceration made even less sense. ‘Ah, Jews always pay for everything. Jews are so scared nowadays, they are frightened of their own shadows…’ Once an interrogator asked him why he didn’t have any medals for being in the war. Volf Izrailevich replied: ‘And why aren’t you a Hero of the Soviet Union?’ His favourite motto was: A fish begins to rot from its head. The lights in the cells were so dim that there was no shortage of books in the library, although we were permitted to take out more than one book and to swap them among ourselves. In Taganka I read Anna Karenina for the first time—earlier I did not find the time for it—and also ‘Light over the Land’ by Babaevsky. Reading this work I recalled Genishta’s words: ‘Put all these second-rate authors in a cell together, and give nothing to the villains apart from copies of their own works; then their rubbishy characters—their Stalskys and their Dzhambuls—can play their dombras and go on glorifying Stalin to their heart’s content.’ One of the novel’s chapters begins: ‘In the manager’s office at the collective farm tensions were unusually high, just as if the secretary of the raikom was coming to test the members’ knowledge of ‘The Short Biography of Comrade Stalin’. The next time the librarian appeared I shouted: ‘I specially came to prison in order not to have to read Soviet literature! Give me something from the classics!’ The librarian flung at me ‘Nisso’ by Luknitsky. The heroine, a sweet girl, a true product of a collective farm, dies with a badge of Lenin on her breast. Compared with ‘Light over the Land’, ‘Nisso’ certainly was a real classic. Until lights-out on New Year’s Eve we played a guessing game: if they were to come in at this very moment and say: ‘Get your things!’ would we arrive in time for the festive table at home? I didn’t celebrate the following New Year in the family circle either, but I was no longer giving myself up to stupid dreams…

116

Part 2

Kolka marked the occasion by splashing boiling water into the eyes of the guard on duty, and we enjoyed five days of his absence. When he brought Kolka back to his place, the guard admonished us all: ‘Why can’t you people behave yourselves in a normal manner!’ ‘Yes, but these are Fascists, head citizen.’ I no longer tried to sustain my reputation for being a madman. One day, admittedly, I got up, not with my face to the wall, as we were supposed to do, but facing the other way, for which I received a sharp, but somehow rather friendly slap on the back of my head. On another occasion I fell on my knees but holding myself upright as we were taught in theatre school, when practising bows. For a long time the guard enjoyed watching me as I ‘said my prayers’. I began to receive money—a hundred roubles a month, much more then I could spend at the prison shop, and money began to pile up in my account. Now I could drink tea with sugar, eat white bread, margarine and even sausages. Goldin, who had a stomach ulcer, was treated to an egg every other day, and, instead of cabbage soup with cold potato and stringy meat, they gave him noodle soup without any gristle (this didn’t help him much; he was already dead before the Twentieth Party Congress—but by then he was free man). They sent me a brand new quilted jacket, felt boots, a winter cap, woollen socks—my family (like myself) were preparing for a classic tsarist exile. And, as I found out later, a fur coat had been bought for Eda. At the beginning of February the guard brought me a pen, ink, some sheets of paper and said that I could write a request for a visit. I asked for a meeting with my wife. Through a fine mesh screen stretching up to the ceiling I caught sight of Eda—looking healthy, beautiful and sad… (I had grown a ginger moustache and I significantly touched it, and then showed my fist, but Eda, of course, did not understand this sign). She said that they would soon take me away. On the twentieth of February in the middle of the night the feeding hatch was opened and I heard: ‘Khe!’ Goldin was the first to respond. But then the escort came in and presented me with a list of questions; at first nothing made any sense. But they got me up, and I managed to deal with them all point by point; and then I heard: ‘Get your things!’ I gave Kolka a pocket-handkerchief—I would never again manage to catch the sound of that marvellous Taganka singing in the summer, with the windows open… I promised Volf Izrailevich that if I were freed I would call on his wife, and that if correspondence were allowed I would write to him… ‘They’ll be shooting us now!’ an old peasant assured us, having also said farewell to everyone.

Part 2

117

They took me, as well as the old peasant, to a transfer cell where two other characters were incarcerated. One was a strapping fellow, Vitali Lobachevsky, from Vasilevskaya street, a one-time boxer and ardent admirer of Marx-Lenin-Stalin and Antonina Koptyaeva. The other was pathologically under-developed Yura Motov from Shabolovka, whose eyes, to an abnormal degree, were kept widely open. I told my companions that as soon as I saw the station I could immediately tell them where they were taking us. We had to wait almost twenty-four hours. When evening came they loaded us into a ‘raven’ and we soon found ourselves in a yard attached to Kazan terminus. 56. THE STOLYPIN There was nowhere to lie down. We sat on the floor and on top of one another. Going to war I was never transported in such cramped conditions. Only here there were grilles everywhere as well. I hadn’t seen a newspaper for six months, but I didn’t begin to be interested in the news. Instead of this I spent the whole journey having a bitter quarrel with this insolent fellow, Lobachevsky. In the theory and practice of Stalinism he could not find the slightest flaw; only one thing annoyed him—the great leader did not understand the reactionary essence of the family. The family longs for a proprietorial element in their lives, and this gives rise to waste and embezzlement. Engels directed that the family was a product of private property, and that one as well as the other must die. Until we liquidate the family we cannot think about Communism. In these terms Antonina Koptiaeva cleverly described the fall of the family in her novel ‘Ivan Ivanovich’. All this Vitaly Lobachevsky expounded in a seminar at the Plekhanovsky Institute, where he was a first year student, and where he proposed the introduction of urgent legislation against the family. Interrogators found it very difficult to deal with people who had ideological ideas of their own—Vitaly did not go back on his own words, on the contrary he made it clear that he would be happy to suffer for his convictions. Hadn’t Comrade Stalin himself suffered exile—and escaped—on several occasions?… At the Serbsky Institute Lobachevsky also held out for a long time—they listened to him and decided to send him off to Kazan, the most reliable prison hospital, ‘for a complete rehabilitation’. Lobachevsky was insolent, coarse and ignorant. I suppose I was completely mad to have wrangled with this idiot so bitterly. In so doing, I hardly noticed that I was using the language of Genishta.

118

Part 2

57. KAZAN They preferred to hide the splendours of this staging post from the eyes of the prisoners, so the stolypin was unloaded at night. A platoon met us with automatic weapons and dogs and we were escorted to the prison adjoining the kremlin—where the Council of Ministers, the obkom and other organs of government are located. At dawn the next day they took us to the hospital— in an ordinary black ‘raven’; evidently a more contemporary mode of transportation, such as a ‘food lorry’, disguising its real function, had not yet come to Kazan; and perhaps, in view of the absence of foreigners there, such stratagems were unnecessary. The specialist hospital was surrounded by a wooden fence with wire and watchtowers, and outside this there was a brick wall. In a small reception area they said a few words to each of us, and then directed us down into a semi-basement—there were windows with grilles. The beds were like hospital beds, only not adjustable and with ordinary mattresses. There were no slop buckets; you could knock on the door to go to a toilet, and it was permissible for a group of prisoners to go out simultaneously. The four of us who arrived together were accommodated in the same cell. They took us to the barber’s and I saw a newspaper there—they had just buried Mekhlis. They cut off my moustache and gave me a shave, and washed me; then they gave each of us a slice of bread with a piece of margarine and a small bag of granulated sugar. They marched us off to see a doctor, and later let us out for a walk. Joyfully I caught sight of the freshened, not at all mad-looking, face of Misha Mamedov. And even Sashka Soldatov was here, an Orthodox militiaman with whom I managed to get acquainted in the Serbsky Institute. He conducted himself quietly and sensibly. The old man who predicted that they were going to shoot us all had been a stoker before going to prison. At the beginning of the war when he was living in the country he just happened to say that it made no sense for the Russians to fight with the Germans: ‘Let Hitler and Stalin shoot each other, then whoever kills the other will be the victor.’ Whether he had been denounced only very recently, or for some reason they had not taken him earlier, was unclear; the main point was that he himself had succeeded in forgetting the exact words he had used, as well as the time they finally arrested him. In consequence they treated him severely, and the illiterate old man went off his head waiting for the fatal shot. Yura Motov grew up among the criminals of the Shabolovka and Drovyano districts of Moscow. His madness was obvious—his hands shook perpetually and his eyes were wide open with terror. Yura was a touching example of a thief bred from need and neglect. He had once seen the play ‘The guilty ones who have no guilt’, where Kruchinina feels sorry for the neglected

Part 2

119

Grisha Neznamov. Yura had written a letter to a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet, and another to Peoples’ Artist of the USSR Alla Konstantinovna Tarasova (who had performed the role of Kruchinina). In this he tried to convince her, as the true mother of all unhappy and deprived people, to head up the Party and the government. Yura made it clear that her name alone directed her to a high calling—Alla—Allah, God; Konstantinova—Constantinople; while Tarasov—well, there was already a Tarasov remembered on the Mausoleum. Whether she herself, the ‘mother of all deprived people’, forwarded the letter to the authorities, or somebody else did, the result was that they took in the guiltless, ‘guilty’ Yura. At Kazan he wrote a letter to the head of the prison: ‘Gusarov—he is an artist, you must look after him. They are feeding him badly, he is getting thin. And if he dies, his son will be left an orphan, he will become a homeless waif and will start thieving.’ Yura complained that in the night his bed rose up towards the ceiling and circled the ward. He still remembers the ward sister who was like a mother to him, and who afterwards drowned herself in the Volga-Don, and is now a mermaid… Catching sight of a pregnant sister in our hospital, Yura said: ‘She will soon give birth to a little water nymph…’ 58. THE RUSSIAN NATIONALIST SOLDATOV Sasha Soldatov (with the same family name as the well-known short-wave radio broadcaster Veni) was a militiaman until the war; he successfully performed his duties, was politically literate, and diligently studied the Erfurtsky programme and the mistakes of the Bund. One day he returned home intending to refresh his memory of these theses, but found his wife in full synthesis with his immediate superior officer. There was an explosion of contradictions and leaping about, as the dialectical method teaches us—but it resulted in Sasha killing both of them with his revolver (he didn’t want to shoot her, but she was shielding her lover. He got six years, served four (work in tree felling is hardly in the same category as simple incarceration). The war began. On the assumption that Soldatov was not an enemy of everything that was progressive, he was entrusted with defending the motherland in a penal battalion. Every day looking death in the eye, Sasha nevertheless managed to elude her slings and arrows. Thinking of this as a wondrous miracle, he began to pray to God for His extreme indulgence before each attack. God was kind to him. They became very close to each other, and on the farthest frontier of Sasha’s life God made him His own. After the war He advised him to take up shoemaking, and Sasha was content in this calling, no less than in his previous occupation as a militiaman; but one fine day the Almighty inspired him

120

Part 2

to collect all his portraits and cuttings from the newspapers, all his political books and old komsomol documents and to burn them in the courtyard. God even considered him worthy of delivering a passionate homily, which was valued for its true worth as much by his previous colleagues in the militia, as by other related organs. Having begun his life’s journey in the militia, and finished it in the bosom of the Orthodox Church, Soldatov tried to convince everyone that these two organisations—administrative and ideological— were entirely sufficient for Russia, and he found weighty arguments for the basis of these institutions ‘To whom are you married?’ he asked me. ‘To an Armenian.’ ‘That’s fine. You are enhancing our nation—your son will be Russian. But if you have a daughter you must make sure that she doesn’t marry someone from another nationality. But if you like, your son can marry a Jewish girl—both will still be ours.’ Sasha called himself a Russian nationalist and he considered anyone a traitor who ‘diminished’ the Russian nation. In Kazan he noticeably quietened down, no longer demanded the dissolution of the Party and the KGB, and only in a whisper dared sometimes to let others share in his imaginings: ‘Did you understand what the film was about?’ (They had shown ‘Little Red Riding Hood’). ‘It’s only a children’s story.’ ‘Story? Then you don’t understand! Little Red Riding Hood—she is the Orthodox Church, and the grey wolf’, I had already guessed, ‘was the Communist Party!’ In a similar fashion he deciphered the film ‘Sadko’; and, in general, he had a place for any name you cared to mention; all personages could be divided into Soviet Unionists and their enemies. I quickly became bored with this and lost interest in who was who, briefly responding with a ‘yes, I understand’. I no longer bothered to think twice about the relationship of Anna to Vronsky—even without Sashka Soldatov it was confusing enough. Were he able to clink glasses in spirit with the basic Party line, a fine contemporary editor or censor might have been got out of him—no conceivable subtext would have been left unexposed. Up to now, under his influence, they have only removed ‘A Lucrative Place’ and ‘Three Sisters’ from the film library, but, thanks to him, we will not be able to see any cartoon films. 59. THE ANTHEM OF THE SOVIET UNION There were many variants. Genishta recited one of them, and I asked him if I could copy it, but he refused: ‘It’s no good written down, you’ll have to learn it by heart.’ I was too lazy. Another text by Igor Streltsov, with whom fate

Part 2

121

brought me to Kazan, was weaker; reminded me less of the actual anthem; it also loses something on paper: As the gendarme of Europe, prison of peoples You arise again, our dread Russia. Be cursed, you artefact of Stalin’s riff-raff Hungry and wicked is the Soviet Union! Those with ‘artistic’ pretensions went further: In evil and depravity Russia wallowed, While the myth was spread that fraternity is best, And the banner of tyranny stained with our blood Soars o’er the world, like a vulture on its quest! The Vorkuta variant, if memory serves, began: ‘Union of oppressed and hungry republics…’ I didn’t get to know Streltsov well, he was kept in close isolation at Kazan, but we somehow managed to meet while we were in quarantine and on walks. His extremism and anti-Semitism embarrassed me. He was one of two real criminals held here (I’ll say more about the second one later). Streltsov’s story went like this: when Smolensk fell, his father was either unable or unwilling to move out, and he remained there and continued to teach German and French. He made friends with a number of extremely intelligent officers and was able to discuss Schiller and Goethe with them. On account of this he faced the firing squad, without trial, as soon as the town was liberated. He had not held any kind of communal, still less government, post under the occupation, or been involved in any publications or antiSoviet propaganda, and in his teaching he continued to use Soviet textbooks. Nevertheless, I am convinced that not one of us was in any doubt that he had been justly executed—it was sanctified vengeance. And to think that he had not joined the partisans, but had actually socialised with Germans—yes, of course, shoot him! Later, new friends had tried to persuade him to escape with them, but he had refused. ‘You’ll end up in a concentration camp!’ ‘Are your concentration camps any better?’ Igor was greatly distressed by his father’s execution without a trial, and went over to the side of the opposition. At the end of the war he fell in with a group of saboteurs, became active in the ‘humanist’ movement and was sent ‘for a cure’ to isolated incarceration—where, in his leisure time, he composed his own version of the ‘Anthem’. In the camps, almost openly, they used to sing yet another variant:

122

Part 2

One day when winter was so cold Great Russia was forever joined, Before my eyes it goes up in the world A giant of a nation, powerful and true. Through storm clouds shone the sun of freedom, Though perils threaten, as I look… But Stalin has reared us to be faithful to the people, Father, d’you hear, he’s chopping, and I’ll cart away… And so on, first a line from the real anthem, then one by Nekrasov, and the rest alternating in the same way, all fitting in well with each other. Apart from Streltsov, I saw another odd character; he was an ex-seminarist, forced into working for the KGB; but he publicly revealed his clandestine role. Some of his own theological texts were found, one was called: ‘Do not insult things that are sacred!’ I came across him when he was in a pitiable state—they hadn’t bothered to lock the door of his ward. He used to sit on a mattress, with a bed cover over his head, and all the time when he was not sleeping, would stroke the heating radiator with his hand. I saw how they fed him—he eat voraciously, but only from somebody else’s hand. I could see that he had defecated there. A doctor had told me that in a week’s time they were transferring me to the third department. This was for the ‘healthiest’ people, where they showed films three times a month, and where you could play chess and draughts, or even spend the whole day in the exercise area if you wanted. But it was already the beginning of March, and they still had not transferred me. Why? Quarantine. I hated to bicker with Vitaly Lobachevsky, and I told myself not to answer him back. Somehow it didn’t work out that way, and once again I found myself heaping curses on Stalin’s head—thankfully, where we happened to be at the time, there was no reason to be scared. One day when my invective was in full cry the old man asked to go to the toilet. They opened the door and we all went out. But the guard with the keys heard what I had been saying, and he gave me a terrible look—everything was there—hatred, pain, anger. Such an insignificant man, just somebody in the crowd, you could say, a Tartar from Kazan perhaps—but you can’t always distinguish them from Russians… ‘How on earth,’ I thought, ‘did I cut myself off from the people, so that an ordinary man could only look at me with nausea? Was there another kind of truth to take into account? Was I right in my drunken mutiny? Perhaps after all it was I who was mad?’ The thought didn’t go away, it drilled into me. In childhood I was absent-minded and forgetful. I could never remember how much things cost. They put money into my hand, sent me all the way to the shop, I went up to the till and repeated over and over again the prices to

Part 2

123

myself—but then I could remember nothing. More than once, having gone out to get some kerosene, I found myself at the school entrance. Then one day I went with a chamber pot in my hand instead of a can (both were normally kept in the toilet—which was so big you could have put a bed in it). Always a bad student, without Papa’s influence I might never have finished school… Admittedly, at the institute for theatre studies I threw myself into being an excellent one; but it was not real work, more like play—fun and laughter… I didn’t read Marx or Lenin; well, certainly not Marx—and only began to read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky when I was in prison (although the Institute still gave me a top mark of five!) As an actor I was just a mediocrity—I had neither character, nor flare, nor a plan; I went out into the world with nothing more than a charming smile… Late in the evening in Moscow—it was around 1950—I was in one of the Arbat alleyways and, feeling the need to relieve myself, I decided on the spur of the moment to urinate on the nearby American embassy building (designed by Serebriannikov and Rungue). They dragged me off, but I insisted: ‘Let me have my say!’ In the end they compromised and allowed me—in full view of a multitude of passers-by—’to have my say’ from a wall of the Bolshoi Theatre. But would a normal person in the uniform of a junior sergeant stand up against a wall in the Arbat with his arm cocked…? And what about Riazan? I once lived there with an older woman, drank her money, and on one occasion when guests arrived, came out of my room completely naked. And once, in the theatre, I stripped naked in the backstage toilet, and in this state went out to offer the ladies my New Year’s greeting. I took the skates from a drunken officer, for which I had absolutely no use, then for a whole week shivered, scared of discovery, even went to church, crossed myself and kissed the floor… And there was the time when some friends took an axe from my grasp and had to tie me up… Once I overheard some girls talking about me behind a wall—against my nature, I kept quiet: what they were saying was helping me to get inflated ideas of myself… Sima Khonina used to tell me that when I was doing monologues my eyes wandered all over the place—seeking other admiring eyes… But what about still earlier times? Drinking bouts with Vitia Merzlov, Armenian escapades, a stolen bed sheet… One day in Perm I was walking in the middle of the street, and I saw a car rushing towards me, I laughed to myself and thought: ‘Knock me down, knock me down, let’s see what happens to you!’ To hell with my instinct for survival, do I really have to stay alive…? Going past a column of prisoners in my father’s car, I half-opened the window, thrust my arm out and shouted: ‘Heil Hitler!’ and quickly returned to sober normality… Yes, whatever the incident, whatever the memory—it’s all pathology… An incomprehensible indifference to those close to me, and to my friends. I could have helped Ira Shibinaya to stay on in Moscow after the Institute, but

124

Part 2

I didn’t. I didn’t save Slava Balandin from the army—and they did ask me to… Instead, I entertained useless drunkards, fed whoever came along, put up with the fools around me and a crowd of sad toadies… And what about that friendship with Zamkov? What brought us close? Was it that we were both in love with Ira Pozdneva? Us drunkards, we kissed each other sweetly, slept in each other’s arms—the devil only knows what our families thought about us… Probably nobody is aware of their own insanity. There’s Igor Streltsov— day after day he sketches Stalin’s mausoleum, one design after another, he has a whole mountain of them. Already they were going through them, tearing them up, burning them—now he’s sketching again! Once he set fire to his clothes; another time, when he was working in the kitchen, he smeared himself with soot and scared those who were religiously inclined: what a devil! They walk round and round the exercise yard, chat about God, about their souls, their moral ideals, the inconstancy of human nature—but they are in Kazan! And then there is Chistopol, another one of their prison-institutions, where there is only one doctor for everyone—if somebody is ill, they never take you off the list, they don’t give sick leave from prison labour… They chase you out to work in the kitchen garden… We had guards, more correctly key holders—I personally did not hear coarse language from them. But if they do physically abuse a prisoner, it is done without spite—it’s just an order; it’s what happens if he resists having a ‘Kamzol’ injection for example—it’s a dreadful torment, they roll you in wet bed sheets until you turn blue with cold; but it’s traditional, they did not invent it; they do not have to justify themselves to the prisoners. 60. HE IS DEAD, DEAD, DEAD… The medical sister, thirty years old, had red weepy eyes; probably her husband had come home drunk, or perhaps the person who was howling all night had died… ‘Gusarov! Dzhugashvili has kicked the bucket!!!’ shouts Igor Streltsov across the coutyard. Sasha Soldatov comes running. ‘Do you believe it?’ I brush Streltsov aside. ‘Look Sasha, I know this is a lunatic asylum… But never mind, he will die sometime… Only he has been waiting for the moment when you and I are on the other side of the wire, and no way is he going to peg out before then!’ ‘Usually he’s really reliable; that’s why I believed what he had shouted out.’

Part 2

125

Confused, Igor corrects himself, and at this point the discussion ends. Selivanovsky, an ex-Chekist, gives valuable advice to all those wishing to hear it: ‘It’s a good idea to put honey on your penis—it will drive a woman out of her mind with pleasure…’ A group of mental cases listen eagerly to his exhortations, although for none of them is the need for honey especially urgent; but the theme is entertaining. Streltsov’s nonsense is forgotten. My favourite poem used to be the ode ‘Liberty’ by Pushkin. Somebody had the verses on a piece of paper and I learnt them by heart and recited them ecstatically, interposing couplets from the Marseillaise in French. Alas! Wherever I cast my gaze— Scourges everywhere, everywhere iron… And with especial terror: Despotic villain! You and your throne I hate. But your ruination, and the death of your children, I behold with cruel joy. One day when a routine spat with Lobachevsky was in full swing I heard a distant siren. The ventilator flap was closed; outside it was dark and frosty. It was eight or nine in the evening… ‘Evidently Kazan is an industrial town…’ ‘Well, what do you think? There are lots of factories there!’ The factories were far away, but the siren was still audible, nobody paid it any attention… On the twentieth of March they transferred all of us to the third department—Leninists, Stalinists and criminals of all stripes; only the old furnace man they sent to some other place—he was still convinced he was going to be shot. In any event I never saw him again. The juggler and illusionist Vakhrameev met us near the entrance, joyfully greeted me and let out the news: ‘Volodia, we have become orphans… Our father has left us…’ ‘No that’s impossible!!!’ Others came up and confirmed it: it was exactly that. From the second of March they had switched off our radio, stopped giving us newspapers, any mail. Everyone had been nervously expectant, not knowing what to think: did this mean war? Later they also heard the distant sirens. There were people like Yurka Nikitchenko, son of a Nuremberg judge, and on close terms with the management—he had told Kandalia in confidence, and went

126

Part 2

around red-eyed, later bursting into tears noisily. And now they have already switched the radio back on, are giving out newspapers and letters—the people are mourning… It was as though someone had hit the back of your head with a log. Bashka’s head can’t take it in… Stalin has died… He is dead… Somebody comes along, introduces himself, starts questioning me: where am I from, which article? I answer that it must be 58.10—agitation propaganda. Well, this is the least serious point, so there is hope; I’ve just got to be careful. If I make friends with the doctor Saifiulin, they might strike off the charge, but not before I have done five years, the minimum tariff. Now I am introduced to a local chess champion, Levinson, a gynaecologist from Irkutsk, and they sit us down behind a board. I lose game after game, final score 6:0. Vakhrameev tries to restore my honour, and confirms that I beat everyone in the Serbsky Institute, but they make fun of him. (Afterwards it becomes clear that we are not so badly matched after all— Levinson is a calmer, more careful, player, while I have more theoretical knowledge). He has died… He’s dead… Dead… What now? What of the future? It’s time to think, but I don’t have any thoughts… From ten in the evening to nine the next morning the wards are locked, but you can knock, and they will let you out. During the day, complete freedom. You can wander around in the department, read, sleep or, if you want, go for a stroll in the exercise yard. ‘Sleep Therapy’ is the only place where access is denied: there the windows are curtained, a metronome can be heard ticking; they give out such large doses of sleep inducing drugs that a person can sleep for whole days—it all comes from studying Pavlov. Night after night I lie in bed unable to sleep, I gaze at the little blue lamp and try to divine—what will become of me? What is going to happen? … The arrests will now cease, but what will they do with those who have already been taken? They won’t be allowed to stay alive; they know only too well what the unity of the Party and the people depends on. Most likely they will shoot all of them, and quickly, while they can blame everything on the great one, now deceased… so the authorities can begin a bright new future with a clean page… Otherwise those surviving unscathed will be able to describe how the granite foundations of society were being shattered into fragments—but that’s saying nothing about the continued devotion of the masses… Or, possibly, they could create settlements, leper hospitals, isolated from the whole world. Live, but with one condition—what happened in the past, forget forever—your family, your friends, Moscow, everything, everything… No, that’s not going to work. Those not killed will create new families, the children will leave home—and what will happen to them? They will pass on the legends of the camps from generation to generation—and the

Part 2

127

things that actually happened are more terrible than any legend… And for how many generations can they be kept in isolation? For how many centuries will they not admit the universal governance of equality and fraternity? No, in their place I would slaughter every one of us right now, with no delay. Afterwards it will be too late—you will never be able to put things right… On one such night I dozed off and had a dream: the Hall of Columns in the Moscow Kremlin, crowds of mourners, a coffin bedecked with flowers— Stalin lay in the coffin, but he was still alive, this I knew for certain; he was not dead, only sleeping. And at the feet of the sleeping man sat his daughter, Svetlana—not the student whom I had seen at university, but a little girl, a schoolgirl, with a knapsack on her back. I feel that if only she moves a bit or wants to get down from the chair, then he will wake up right there. I am terrified and try to persuade her: ‘Don’t get down, just sit there, little girl, don’t get down!’ I woke up—I couldn’t sleep any more, above me the blue lamp was still burning, the terror was still with me… Many people had nightmares and prophetic dreams at this time… It was a Beethoven hour… 61. THE DOCTORS’ PLOT The fact that they had been arrested I learned on an exercise walk in April. It seemed that the Kremlin doctors (Jews on the whole) had, for all their lives, studied and worked with the exclusive aim of undermining the health of Zhdanov and Vasilevsky (and, by those means, of serving the interests of Israel and American imperialism). God, how much happier I am than those who are free today but who gorge on this concoction! Someone asks: ‘Don’t you believe it?’ No, I don’t believe it! Not with one cell of my soul and body! For long years I have tormented myself with the riddle of the Moscow trials—‘probably, there’s something I don’t know, don’t comprehend’, and Feikhtvanger did me a good turn with his ‘authoritative work, and free opinion’; but here, with the doctors, there’s nothing to understand! No, I have not gone off my head. In politics, perhaps, I am not quite such a blockhead as to imagine that the entire flower of Soviet medicine was incapable of administering those same medicines to Gorky and Menzhinsky and other members of the communist elite. ‘They whitened the walls with a harmful substance’!—You have to undergo training over a very long period to believe such gibberish… In the conditions of the Kremlin they don’t prescribe any treatment without consultation. It appears that ubiquitous Israel was able to recruit whole doc-

128

Part 2

tors’ collectives—and this was already happening in the thirties! And for what? So that the Jewish doctors Veitsman and Meerson might occupy the Kremlin? And a woman, Timoshuk, a person unknown to anybody, exposed them all—so it’s obvious she must have known better than they do how to look after a patient. And for that reason she received the Order of Lenin. It would not have been so bad if they had prescribed the same treatment for her as for the unforgettable deceased, who now sleeps in the mausoleum. Never, even in my most secret youthful dreams, have I wanted to go into the mausoleum or to stand on its rostrum; nor could I ever understand why Stanislavsky and Shaliapin were considered inferior to Lenin, so why weren’t they there as well? Well, let us suppose that in the factory, in the warehouse, in the fields of a collective farm it was possible to organise a quiet counter-revolution: let’s say by starting machines incorrectly or by sowing crops out of season. But how do you begin to do harm on the stage, in the laboratory, in the clinic? Lemeshev did not begin to sing ‘any worse’, even if he was disappointed with Communism. A creative worker is not in a frame of mind to organise ‘Italian strikes’; the thought that permanently pursues him is that he might be untalented. A scientist knows that his discovery can be made use of by any führer; all the same, as a rule, he continues to work (at the very worst he might deny his vocation totally; but otherwise he will not work ‘badly’). But is it likely that eminent medical professors would begin the process by doing injections into the backside of Marshal Vasilevsky to oblige Dzhoint and mister Meerson?… I was unable to bring my thoughts to a conclusion before reading in a newspaper about the exposure of a group of shady interrogators-careeristsadventurers, who had tried to shake the inviolable friendship of the Soviet peoples. The doctors, on the other hand, were released (but for some reason two of the eleven were only ‘released’ posthumously). Between the guards and the prisoners a dispute arose. A key phrase caused it to flare up: ‘You must not blacken all Soviet people on account of a few idiots!’ A short-armed poet looking like a seal (to this day I can still remember his verses, but now they seem so weak that I shall not quote from them) responds: ‘Soviet people? There’s no shit worse than a Soviet person! What is there to blacken?… Don’t you have any pride or conscience left?’ 62. EMPERORS AND PRESIDENTS In any Moscow courtyard you will find individuals a good deal nuttier than those in our department. Melnikov strums away on his mandolin in an effort

Part 2

129

to play a Neapolitan song, Yurka Nikitchenko knocks together a volleyball team or tries to charm the medical sister, while Levinson and I attempt to master French Defence. Bearded grandfather Limonnik, looking like a cross between Kropotkin and an ogre, is writing something in tiny letters, and, at the same time, slowly moves around the couryard in pursuit of the sun. Aleksandr Zaitsev and Doctor Brunshtein (a monarchist count and a Jew of no particular rank) discuss medical themes, while brawny Inyakin, ‘inventor of ether’, is running his tenth circuit of the courtyard. Even in the opinion of the guards, the people here are not mentally sick. But when they began to bring patients in to us from the Sixth Department (also made up of placid cases) the picture did change; easily distinguishable, these really were souls from bedlam. One-time pilot Antipov is only able to make use of his tongue and, to some extent, his extremities—he’s just a block of meat jelly. People from the Baltic area wear the same kind of jacket that he does. An inexperienced eye might at a glance see something of a German officer in him—and he has a peculiar gait, and looks straight through you. Then there is the young ‘padré’, wearing a decorated robe under the cassock of a Polish priest, muttering in an unknown tongue. The ex-chairman of a collective farm has been going around for a whole year in a cap with ear flaps (his ears tied up), and a tightly buttoned half-length jacket. Next to him is some kind of tattooed creature who, even in April, tends to dart out, naked above the waist. ‘Emperor of the whole world’ Semyonov sits on the ground and with great concentration tries to draw with a little stick… The chairman of the collective farm stops to deliver a speech: ‘And now this rabid gang of Molotov’s will assemble for the meeting— they’re going to discuss the budget and the collective farms—how will they settle it? It will be whatever’s best for Molotov’s rabid gang! They’ll mention America, and Yugoslavia; but, mostly, they’ll make a meal of everything and then leave things just as they are.’ Somebody he can’t see asks him a question. He repeats the question and replies loudly, raising his voice with effort—it sounds as though he’s trying to deliver a speech across a big auditorium. If somebody goes up to him and says something, even in his defence, he will interrupt his speech with annoyance and go off to another part of the room. The tattooed man talks non-stop in a monotone, as though he’s reading a report: ‘This bald-headed whore, who the Socialist Revolutionay Kaplan shot… They called Dzhugashvili Soso… Soso… One day he came home drunk and forced his wife to suck him off—so from that day they call him Soso… ‘Emperor of the whole world’ Yuri Yevgenevich Semyonov, who was once the dean of the Moscow Aviation Institute, has been in various prisons since 1936. He wrote to the Central Committee that Yagoda was an enemy.

130

Part 2

Now they have brought him here… True, they did shoot Yagoda later, but that didn’t mean they were going to release Semyonov. Today ‘his highness’ is lively and affable. Because of the thaw snowballing is impossible, and for the same reason it’s too early to play volleyball; so I get into conversation with the ‘monarch’. ‘Yuri Yevgenevich! Appoint me Emperor of the USSR!’ ‘I will appoint you to be my adjutant. In August I am going to Siberia for a meeting with Trotsky…’ ‘Is he really still alive?’ ‘Well… of course! He gave me a red star from his forage-cap.’ ‘And is Lenin still alive?’ ‘Most likely he is… There’s no reliable evidence of his death…’ ‘So who is it lying in the mausoleum?’ Semionov smiled enigmatically and drew some lines on the ground with his stick. But I didn’t leave it there: ‘They say that even Stalin has died…’ ‘Stalin is living under the family name Aliosha Svanidze in Tbilisi and in Moscow ‘A’ district.’ ‘And what about the Germans?’ ‘What Germans? Where have they come from? I am re-locating them in the seventh sector, come and look here…’—and an hour would have gone by if I had not stopped him from further discussion of the Germans. Yuri Yevgenevich complains that the chief of operations Saifiulin is threatening to depose him: ‘Strange people! They think that power is good for you. But power is a burden! I am ready to pass it on to somebody else at any time, but to whom? Stalin’s son Aleksandr Iosifovich doesn’t want it…’ Zaitsev bites his lip and the fury goes away. Up to now the monarchist is still in mourning over the Lord’s Anointed tsarevich murdered in 16.., and has no truck with atheism. I delicately put myself forward as the pretender to the throne, but Yuri Semyonov doesn’t even consider it necessary to discuss my candidature—I have already received my adjutant’s nomination; admittedly it does not fit in with my own ambitions. Whenever a woman appears, the emperor casually throws out: ‘This is my wife.’ For some reason our doctor (a woman!) has become interested and chips in playfully: ‘How is it, Yuri Yevgenevich, that you are able to cope with so many wives?’ ‘These are my spiritual wives,’ answered the ex-dean of the aviation institute with dignity. ‘You don’t really imagine that I go to bed with all of them?’

Part 2

131

But evidently his protestation does not completely accord with reality. Sometimes he does go up to one or other of the medical sisters and starts chatting with her about the intimate details of their ‘marital’ life; possibly he has erotic dreams in which the female characters seem to be real, but here, although they are just women passing the time of day with him, he is in no doubt that they also remember everything that has happened to them in his dreams. During the time of his emperorship, Semionov makes more speeches, each day in a new role—now he is a Hero of the Soviet Union, now a chekist (everything’s possible), now he’s discussing plans for the creation of a photo-ballet studio. Here’s a group of people strolling about in the exercise yard; but they want to go back, and the guards are taking them in. Yuri Semyonov peevishly observes: ‘Voting with our feet has begun! Extremely correct… It’s just that I don’t understand—why this secrecy? They should express themselves more clearly!’ His mother continues to ‘agitate’ for her son; for seventeen years she has petitioned on his behalf without any result. Yuri Yevgenevich has seen his hair turn grey in prisons and hospitals, but the old lady has not given up hope. ‘Yura’, she says to him on a visit, ‘I have made an appeal to Lavrenty Pavlovich.’ Semionov smiles indulgently: ‘Why did you turn to him? Beria knows where I am to be found. He and I do only one kind of business together—he is in Sector ‘B’, I am in Sector ‘A’.’ With the help of monarchist Zaitsev, who had dictated his manifesto to me, I tried to overthrow the ‘Emperor’—if not from a world-wide throne then at least from a Russian one—‘grieving over the immense suffering of our beloved people’... My speech did not make the slightest impression on Semyonov. Then I reminded him: ‘Yuri Yevgenevich! You are getting ready to take me with you to Siberia to meet Trotsky, do you remember? And it’s already November…’ ‘Would you believe it!’ the ‘Emperor’ said mournfully, ‘They have made it difficult for me again!’ Many years later I met Semyonov outside the University Metro station. He was sitting on a marble bench; I went up and greeted him. ‘I am Gusarov, do you remember me?’ He looked at me warily for a long time, then muttered: ‘I can see that you are Gusarov… But you look really young…’ Evidently he took me to be his father, who thirty years ago was Party organiser of the Moscow Aviation Institute.

132

Part 2

I found out that Semyonov was a technical consultant in the Library of Foreign Literature in Razin Street. He worked on the top floor of the building, which occupied the site of an old church. They said that previously he had lost his marbles, tried knocking on the doors of various organisations in connection with his ‘projects’. Then he married, and had a daughter—but she was born of another woman—‘my spiritual wife.’ He is now on a pension; his mother is still alive and she tries to keep as close as possible to him. He often jumps out of bed in the middle of the night, and writes things down on pieces of card. He has a vast number of them which he keeps in the strictest order. For him Stalinist times will never return—we will hope for the same. We couldn’t believe our ears when we heard on the radio the forgotten Western words: ‘tango, foxtrot…’ And then the magical voice of Ruslanova… But surely she is in prison… Is it really possible that ordinary humble people like Ryumin will again be found guilty? On the second of May a picture of Lavrenti Pavlovich was printed in a May Day newspaper embracing two Young Pioneers with flowers in their hands (among the prisoners stories were going around about his affairs with young girls!) ‘Isn’t it strange that Beria doesn’t just make a run for it?’ I asked. Zaitsev looked at me sharply. ‘Beria has real power.’ I reminded him that he himself had said not long ago: ‘Malenkov—he is Russian, he’ll end up like Rakhmetov in The Cherry Orchard. Russians are not fanatics; they are able to take account of reality.’ I asked: ‘What about Lenin?’ ‘Lenin’s mother was Mrs Blank, so there was a strong GermanJewish influence on him; but he was really an opportunist.’ ‘And Mao Tse Tung?’ ‘He is the Lenin of today.’ ‘Lenin and not Stalin?’ ‘No. Stalin is a madman, but Mao is simply a bandit of international status. Mao is from the East, but he seems to be following in Stalin’s footsteps. For us the Stalinist epoch is untypical. We Russians are lacking in administrative skills, so in our case it’s easy for people like Trotsky, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin and Beria to come to the surface…’ ‘And what about Rykov?’ ‘A drunkard, a nobody!’ ‘And Bukharin?’ ‘The intelligentsia have never been rulers, least of all in Russia. Bukharin should have stayed on as a professor at university; he would soon have resigned himself to his fate, but Stalin made decisions in the same way as Ivan the Terrible, another madman.’ Zaitsev expressed doubts whether Russia in its present state would survive another Georgian leader. At the beginning of June a ‘psychiatrist’, Turabarov, in a white coat, arrived from Moscow. He set up a commission and discharged a proportion of the establishment’s occupants (it was the first time for many years that this had happened). They didn’t begin to talk to me since there were still people

Part 2

133

languishing there from the thirties. Admittedly they were few in number, because over the two winters of ’forty-one and ’forty-two almost everyone had perished. They gave them almost nothing to eat, and every day they buried as many as thirty or forty people. In my time there was only one survivor in the Sixth Department, who was taken in 1937—Anderst, now an old man with pale parchment-like skin, who once worked for the ‘Atheist’ magazine. They held him separately from the others—he thought of himself as a woman and feared violence; but that was rather pointless, because for a long time he had ceased to belong to either sex. Anderst went out for his walks in the yard carrying a bulky parcel of exercise books; their pages covered in minuscule writing, and tied up with string. He wrote plays and they might have been extremely interesting, not at all the work of a madman; but it was impossible to read them; the author wouldn’t allow anyone near him and would give out an incredible shriek in response to any suspicious movement. And if anybody dared to start a conversation with him about politics he wailed in a heart-rending voice: ‘That’s enough! A parliament and a president are what we need! So, no more, no more!’ But we did have a ‘president’—the President of Estonia, Piast. They kept him in the therapeutic department, with normal privileges. But I, for my sins, did not go down with even the slightest chill the whole time I was there, and so never became acquainted with Professor Piast; but from what I heard he was a clever man, charming, but, incidentally, with bourgeois roots. Nor did I succeed in getting to know Admiral Galler, but that was because he died shortly before my arrival. On several occasions they took him from Kazan to Moscow, where they beat him up terribly, and after the last of such journeys he was unable to stand. The prison cemetery with unmarked graves was visible from our windows… They often recalled Galler in our conversations. Evidently he—when a Lieutenant on the Aurora—never suspected how the ‘historic’ shot would continue to resound in Russia (a single shot which, for the sake of solidarity, they now call a volley). Oh, Polozov, Polozov… Not so long ago Galler met a sailor from the Variag, I saw a photograph in Pravda. They were saying that in prison he kept his military bearing, holding his head in a particular way; and that he walked stiffly, clicking his heels. The charge against him was that during the war he led convoys from America, convoys that brought things that we did not really need, but which were surplus to the requirements of the Americans (?!); and, of course, that he was involved in spying. But when something is given away for free, you don’t necessarily have to make trouble, or become hard to please; better just say thanks, and take it—before they change their minds. But it became clear

134

Part 2

that America bribed Galler, he accepted gifts from them… Oh, lieutenant, lieutenant!… In the female quarters there was a woman brought here before the ‘Kirov affair’ of 1934. She was sixteen years old at the time and was now thirty-five. She was never going to be a bride. Not for one day in getting on for twenty years was she idle; during the war, and hardly alive, she plodded around the kitchen gardens; and now she was often to be seen peeling potatoes in the kitchen. Probably potato skins saved her life. Nobody really knew what her crime was, but they did say that she once threw stones in the direction of the Mausoleum in Red Square. Perhaps that was it; but in any case Turabarov did not strike her off the list—and now there are two occupants—catching her throwing stones again would be even easier… I never longed to work in the kitchen, but I did go once to the bookbinding shop. I wasn’t allowed in a second time because of my excessive efforts to sing. They especially liked: To our great joy, comrade Stalin, you have breathed your last, Our wise leader, our dear tormentor! The librarians wouldn’t tolerate me either—the library, incidentally, was an especially nasty place; the books were the lousiest, and there were not many of them—but it was pointless to complain. The linen manageress was on the point of making me one of her assistants, but the place was taken by Misha Mamedov—‘inflexible, untalented’. But they were soon working together so harmoniously that, having locked themselves in the linen room, they would sort sheets by the hour (she cleverly arranged things so that I was kept well out of the way). But others noticed, and they began putting pressure on Misha: ‘Admit it, Misha, isn’t there something going on between you and the linen manageress?’ He gave an enigmatic look but said nothing, although he did boast to me that he had tried everything in Gorky; but Gorky—that was something from the past… Savouring the perfume of a new epoch, Misha revealed that he had taken the name of Mamedov when under torture in Vrotslavsky prison, but that his real name was Aleksei Sarkisian. He served in one of our units in Poland and, in his words, simply lost his way in the forest (perhaps he deliberately deserted, who knows). They caught him, and for some reason known only to God and to his interrogator they began to demand that he be known as Mamedov. What this Mamedov had done, Aleksei did not know and therefore, whenever the name came up, he did not answer for him. They would not allow him to sleep, and when this didn’t work, they began to drive pieces of wood under his fingernails. Sarkisian felt so sorry for his hands that he

Part 2

135

agreed to adopt the stranger’s name—and nationality into the bargain. But he became preoccupied with certain outlandish activities, so he had to be classified as unreliable. For five years they have been transferring him from one psikhushka to another. He is unusually clever and sharp-witted—until he went into the army he didn’t know a single Russian word; but he can now recite from memory whole pages of the Russian classics, he plays a good game of chess and—unlike myself—has fully formed political convictions. In the papers they have printed a big speech of Eisenhower’s, and then one of Churchill’s: ‘In the Kremlin big changes are expected. Stalin’s heirs cannot follow in his footsteps, however much they might want to do so.’ In my ward there was general indifference. Dima Lishniavsky, nephew of P. S. Zhemchuzhina, Molotov’s wife, tormented us endlessly with his verses: Better let consumption eat us up, So they can cart our remains to the cemetery… Or: Like it used to be, Seriozhka Yesenin In sadness drinks some Russian vodka… Dima believes in a God of Nature. ‘Every insect, every blade of grass, brings me joy!’ he touchingly repeats. Apart from his verses and his insects he is not adept at reasoned discussion about things in general, but he is always clean, neat and welcoming. Afanasi Ivanovich Tishchenko is also an entirely ordinary person, although he had a chequered story to tell: he was a bookkeeper in the building department of Moscow University, and one day when he was having a little drink-up in a Caucasian shashlik restaurant near Pushkin Square, he suddenly uttered the words: ‘Nice Communism—twenty million slaves!’ They immediately seized him, and his interrogator gloatingly asked him to repeat it: ‘Twenty million slaves, you say? Well, you are going to be the twenty million and first!’ Tishchenko did not have any family. For him, and also for a German, Artur Frank, I buy cigarettes at the sales counter. In gratitude Afanasii Ivanovich cobbled together for me a pocket file for documents from bookbinding material, and on an impulse came to see me one day and presented me with a little mirror of his own making. Although we lived in the same ward in Kazan, we didn’t associate very much with each other. They said he was an informer, as well as being a counter-revolutionary; and I actually detested

136

Part 2

him. (The file, complete, is still with me to this day, but the little mirror was broken). Artur Frank was already an old man who didn’t speak Russian very well; feeling sorry for him I tried to help him as an interpreter, but my German was extremely primitive; so when I began to relate to him ‘Anna Karenina’ he went off into fits of laughter—the wife making a cuckold of her husband—it was very funny! We usually talked about German-Russian friendship. Frank, a railway carriage repairer from the GDR, was not against a friendly relationship, but only on one condition—that Poland should be divided between our two countries in an honest way. I went on trying to show him that Poland was not needed either by him or by us. We had with us an intellectual from Stavropol; he was surprised that Frank had never heard of Kant or Feierbach; but I think our own carriage repairers are hardly likely to be acquainted with Pisarev or Dobroliubov. Once I asked Frank if he knew any Communists. He named Trotsky, Torglier and Rosa Luxemburg (Telman, the Fascist, he didn’t mention!). His words prompted me to compose (for the only time in my life, it seems) the lines: ‘And now let them ask me just one question: Friend, name for me some Commusists. And I answer: Lenin, Trotsky and, of course, Rosa Luxemburg!’ When they called Artur to the tribunal, nervousness caused him some embarrassment—he had to change his underpants before standing in front of the ruler of destinies. 63. BERIA—ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE The ‘right-wing reactionary’ shouted out the news, as he ran out of the canteen—at exercise time he had been quietly sitting over an English language textbook. But now I rushed over to the canteen radio. …English spy. Also involved: Merkulov, Dekanozov, and (names not known to me) Kabulov, Vladzimirsky, Meshik (and they could have added any number of people…) Later I learned that at this time father had come across N. S. Sazykin and had greeted him, but the latter ‘did not recognise’ his old friend and had not responded to his greeting—he did not want to drag him down with him; but nobody was in any doubt that Sazykin, Beria’s elderly deputy, was condemned to failure! He went to work as usual, sat in his office, but no one called on him and no one phoned him. Every morning he said goodbye to his wife. Finally they summoned him to the Central Committee and appointed him to a teaching post at the Plekhanovsky Institute. He had escaped, as they say, with only a fright. They had toppled Beria!—I was so delighted that I was almost left a cripple for the rest of my life—I jumped up to grab the top edge of the door

Part 2

137

into the mess room and began swinging myself to and fro as I would on the horizontal bar in the gym, and then throwing my feet above my head. But the top of the door seemed to be smeared with grease of some kind, my fingers slipped off, and in one dreadful swoop I crashed to the floor with my spine hitting the threshold step. I recovered consciousness in bed as a moustachioed medical orderly administered Sal-ammoniac to my nose, then gave me an injection, telling me: ‘You are just like an eel! You lot can’t be left unsupervised for a minute…’ And from then on they supervised us day and night. My spine was painful for two months, they even took X-rays; but what was my fall in comparison with that of Lavrenti Pavlovich! Everybody rejoiced. Only one person, Kandalia, who was a chauffeur, went around with a defeated air and gloomily commented that we all needed to be crushed. Afterwards he suddenly and completely changed his attitude to the victim, and, more loudly than anyone, began to condemn the ‘pederast Beria’. I said to him, that was not all—we’re soon going to find out more about that archpederast. He was shocked and ran to complain to Yurka Nikitchenko (many ‘staunch Stalinist citizens’ used to crowd around the general’s young son hoping for some tasty morsels from the parcels he received). ‘Fool’, said Yurka, ‘have you forgotten where you are? What we’ve got around us here is the scum of the whole country!’ Yurka Nikitchenko, the wild son of a Nuremberg judge, grew up with children from the Stalinist People’s Committees, and in conversation he reminded me of Stasik Rostotsky. As with Timur Frunze and Ruben Ibarruri, Yurka from the first days of the war was in action at the front, but managed to stay alive, although his exploits were imprinted on his forehead: under his battered skull you could see a vein pulsing. By a miracle Budrenko was able to save his life. Yurka loved to declaim some lines (that he thought were seditious): We shall not beat a path Towards the elusive pole Or extend a tunnel Along the ocean floor. And we shan’t bring forth another Rafael, Shakespeare, Rodin, Glinka; And we’re not going to cure leprosy Or fly to the moon! However the verses went on to tell of a future generation that would be prepared for great discoveries and achievements—’we are on the way to becoming real people’. But they amputated the right arm of a man who in the

Part 2

138

future might have been another scientist like Pirogov (he suffered this without a groan), but ‘instead of Newton’s apples, Fritze’s bombs hung in the air’. Yurka went on playing the guitar and singing camp songs: But now I swear, my little dove, I will beat our foes, just see how hard, Because our freedom is so sweet But what a pity it’s so rare! And more besides such as ‘The stormy rays of sunset’, ‘The prison chief’, ‘Who raised a bloody hand against our peace and calm’, as well as ‘A grey wraith which bears the image of a lovely woman’. Also in his repertoire was ‘The cranes’: And somewhere afar The old greying mother Bowing down to the ground Pays tribute to her son… Perhaps Yurka was not an informer; he did not try to lead anybody astray on account of his opinions or his own particular situation—but in prison he went around in an expensive beautifully pressed suit, openly flirted with the female doctor, was often tipsy, and whenever he took it into his head to be a real pest he would be put in the isolation ward—but just to sleep it off. He was narcissistic and an outrageous liar. So, for example, he insisted that he was in prison because he had attempted to kill Beria, on the pretext that his wife, a beautiful Polish sportswoman, had been forced to consort with him. I was galvanised by his detailed descriptions of the ‘affair’ and he went on relating his story right up to the time of Beria’s fall. The real reason for his detention was that he had sent a patrol officer into a world where there was neither grief nor trouble—the poor beggar had imprudently demanded to see Yurka’s papers. His murder was categorised as political terrorism, although Yurka had all his life been a true son of the Communist fatherland. Even in prison he tried to inculcate in everybody the Communist line, including the English intelligence agent Fortuemes. Yurka Nikitchenko, alone, held both prisoners and prison staff in contempt, and when they sent him to the Serbsky Institute, intending to ‘brainwash’ him, he fixed his eyes on the white-coated psychiatrists and said: ‘What are you people with clever faces doing sitting here? It’s not at this table that our fates are being decided—you lot might just as well be a row of parrots!’

Part 2

139

The parrots jibe made them angry, and they sent Yurka back to Kazan. He set light to the mattress under him as a mark of protest, but this did not do him any good—he was only able to get out after the Twentieth Party Congress, and he died very soon afterwards. We had another standard-bearer for the regime—an old Bolshevik, Boris Ivanovich Mokhov, from Gnezdikovsky Street in Moscow. His wife continued to receive his pension while he was in Kazan for ‘treatment’. He used to stroll majestically in the exercise yard, covering a bald spot on his head with a pocket-handkerchief, and holding in his hand a tome of Marx. On Yurka’s views concerning the riff-raff, the ex-obkom member Vladimirov observed that Nikitchenko respected the authority of no one apart from a small group of scroungers within the prison. Vladimirov had been inside since ’37 and was well known as a person who was direct and fearless, and capable of punching you in the face over a trifle. When we were undergoing a routine search I commented provocatively: ‘You are making a bad job of this search—I still have a picture of comrade Beria!’ The guard rummaged through all my things again and, finding nothing, gave me a furious look. ‘Haven’t you found it yet? What’s this?’—I told him to look at a photograph of a Tbilisi tournament in a chess magazine—on the stage in the background could be discerned a portrait of Beria. The guard heaved a sigh and took the magazine away with him. We began to think back—already in December the leaders had appeared at the opera to see ‘The Decembrists’ without Beria. But then Zaitsev assured us that Beria was in Berlin at the time—for discussions. Ulbricht apparently had acknowledged that his government had lost touch with the working class. Nikitchenko must have known something even earlier than that, but he was now saying that they had taken down the portrait of Lavrenti Pavlovich from the opera house because of repair work. In ‘Pravda’ an example of anti-Marxist private ownership was reported; but exactly what kind of ownership was not spelled out, and it was left to the reader’s acumen to assess its significance (our disagreements over deciphering the Soviet press can be no worse than that of the Central Committee itself). At one of their meetings Malenkov passionately extolled the virtues of ‘our father’ Lenin (afterwards a rumour went around that he really was related to Ilich), but only once, in passing, did Stalin call him great. In postcards to home I wrote: ‘You narcissistic creatures, having put Marxism to rights, you’ll all come to a very sticky end!’ The censor must have let it through assuming that I was cursing Beria; but at home my comments did not please anyone, and no attempt was made to understand them.

140

Part 2

Many years later I was extremely surprised by M. P. Yakubovich’s assertion that Beria himself, on his own reckoning, was not a bloodthirsty ogre, and was not straining to arrest or shoot people. ‘If Yezhov had survived a few more months I should not have come out alive from Verkhneuralskaya prison,’ said Yakubovich. ‘Only two of us survived the winter of ’thirty-seven…’ With trepidation we waited for change. Even the Young Pioneers’ song, which was often broadcast on the radio, we found disturbing: How good it is to be here! We shall find cheerful friends in the camp! Amusing everyone, I read aloud from the newspaper: ‘Armed with the decisions of the hysterical Nineteenth Party Congress…’ Later I became tired of waiting and worrying, and distracted myself with chess and volleyball; I would like to have done some play acting, but that was beyond the scope of our combined talents, and we had to limit ourselves to writing compositions. Dima Lishniavsky (previously indifferent to politics) began to versify: ‘The great Mingrelian was burning’ and ‘Beria has lost our trust’. Unfortunately, only when I was again free did I get to know a song which would have been very much to the point in Kazan: In Tbilisi the damson flourishes Not for Lavrenti Palych, But for Klement Yefremych And Viacheslav Mikhalych! 64. TO THE GALLOWS OF THE BOLSHEVIKS! At home in Perm the vice-president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, I. P. Bardin came to stay with us for a week. I could be mistaken, but he might have looked a little pale if they had stood him beside Aleksandr Iosifovich Zaitsev. Although there were several intellectuals held in Kazan, authors of heavy tomes, there was nobody else around like Zaitsev. Physicists, chemists, doctors, engineers—they would all be asking for his opinion, as though he himself was a specialist in each of their specialisms. And no matter what language they were using, he replied effortlessly—with no pause in his endless walk around the exercise yard. The father of Aleksandr Iosifovich, Duke Zaitsev, was a colonel in the Tsarist army, and when he emigrated, married a Catholic. But his first wife (in an access of patriotism she had trained to be a doctor during the war) remained in Russia. Aleksandr finished schooling in Vienna, and then went

Part 2

141

on to a university in America—Harvard it seems. And he would doubtless have been a brilliant scientist; but at this point his father, who up to then had cautioned the young man against doing anything risky, died. But the young prince, having fought against the Hitlerites in France, and been wounded, decided to commit his life to the struggle against Bolshevism. Offering his services to American Intelligence, Zaitsev, now with a different set of loyalties, ‘returned’ to the USSR, went through the usual vetting process, but did not go to the place where he was directed. Instead he went to Moscow where a passport was prepared for him by US Intelligence, together with documents appropriate for a disabled victim of the Second World War. An old woman let a room to him in Vorovsky Street and registered him at that address as her nephew. As a disabled person Zaitsev was re-examined, and received a pension. He began going to the Lenin Library, reading Tertullian and Thomas Aquinas for the good of his soul, and making use of other books for his work. One day in a shop in the Arbat an elderly woman approached him. ‘Aren’t you related to Iosif Aleksandrovich?’ Zaitsev winced and went pale. It seemed the person talking to him must be his father’s ex-wife. ‘I am his son…’ Who it was who informed the ‘organs’ of his secret address in Leningrad, Zaitsev, of course, did not know, although he had some theories on that account; the fact was that he was ambushed and was found to have a loaded Browning pistol in his pocket. The investigation in Leningrad did not give a result: the psychiatric expert declared that he was not responsible for his actions, but Moscow could not agree with such a conclusion. They took him to the Lubyanka, they read out a secret ukase (nothing illegal!), but even on the rack Aleksandr Iosifovich abused the Bolsheviks and sang ‘God save the Tsar!’ In the end his torturers gave up, once again classified him as being an unstable person, and sent him off to Kazan. In the Lubyanka, in the intervals between interrogations, Zaitsev demanded books. ‘Not allowed!’ ‘Ah, not allowed?!’ He went up to the air vent and, in the dead silence, shouted: ‘Take the Bolsheviks to the gallows! Long live the constitutional monarchy!’ They beat him into unconsciousness, but as soon as he came to his senses he began to shout: ‘Books!’ ‘In ten days.’ ‘Ah, in ten days? Send the Bolsheviks to the gallows!’ ‘The library is not open today.’

142

Part 2

‘Ah, so it’s not even open!’ They did not order the execution of this prisoner, but it was impossible to silence him. So they began to bring him books as soon as he demanded them. In Kazan they kept him in the section with the severest regime, with those who eat their own excrement; and they destroyed his writings. He went on hunger strike. They began to force-feed him, tying him up in the process each time; but again actual torture was not ordered, and so Aleksandr Iosifovich was able to walk out for exercise, his thick glasses gleaming in the sunlight, as though there was nothing out of the ordinary going on in our little courtyard. The ex-duchess did not abandon him, she worried about her ward, she sent money, and came to visit him. One day, returning from a meeting, Aleksandr Iosifovich sat down opposite me, opened a box of truffles and began to regale me: ‘Take some, Vladimir Nikolaevich, take some! It’s best to keep on the right side of informers…’ ‘Why do you say that?’ ‘It’s better to give…’ All this sounded equivocal. I certainly have a long tongue: when I get carried away, I can talk endless nonsense about something when there is no reason to say anything at all. But fortunately everybody is aware of this little quirk of mine—my friends, as well as some of those working for the ‘organs’. The former I ask not to entrust me with secrets of any kind so as to avoid trouble; the latter know that it is impossible for me to have a sincere or confidential conversation about sensitive matters. Our female doctor once began to chat with me about Zaitsev, but of course I could not restrain myself from expressing my admiration for such a remarkable person. When I told Aleksandr Iosifovich about this he was horrified by my naivety. I took a truffle, and in order to change the subject asked: ‘Well, what did your mother have to say to you?’ ‘She thinks that in the end they will release me. Anyway, that’s what the chekists told her…’—and I saw tears in his eyes. He stood up and left me with the box of truffles, which, in those conditions, were difficult to keep. The whole department knew that at table I sat next to Zaitsev and that it was pointless for anyone else to take that place. One day Lobachevsky decided to threaten Aleksandr Iosifovich, I lifted a chess board above my head, and the boxer, evidently, understood that I was not joking, quickly melted away. In prison language, which he loved to use, he had ‘fallen ill with cowardice’. Another time Selivanovsky came up to me and began to whisper: ‘What are you up to? Don’t you want to get out of here? You must not approach Zaitsev, he is a real spy!’

Part 2

143

‘You are a spy as well,’ I said, ‘but I don’t have any problems about approaching you.’—And I promised to smash his ugly face if he ever again poked his nose in with his alarmist advice. He obeyed. Fortunately for us, there was no treatment of any kind—unlike the present time. The existence of the doctors was a formality, and there was little to distinguish them from mere supervisors. Even sleep therapy they soon abolished. The headman was the ‘godfather’, Saifiulin; through him passed all correspondence, money vouchers and authorisations. Every summons from Saifiulin (usually he called me from the exercise yard) was a difficult experience; having returned, I made a point, but casually, of showing everyone the voucher or official document, so that they should know that he had called me on routine business… Perhaps this was a general mental condition—at all costs avoid being thought of either as an informer, or a stool pigeon; and for me this fear was especially strong, because I myself, as well as all my friends, knew that my tongue was my enemy. I have already mentioned the occasion when a doctor summoned me— and we began to talk about Zaitsev. She was a young but unattractive woman—the current flame of the eternally amorous Yurka Nikitchenko. ‘You have been with us five months now, and so far I have not had a chance to have a chat with you. Oh, and incidentally a parcel has come for you,’ and she handed me six chess magazines that mama had sent. ‘So, how are things with you?’ I myself had not noticed the extent to which I had become an admirer of Zaitsev; but with his exceptional insight he had sensed that I was afraid to talk to him about the theatre; this was because I suspected his knowledge was greater than mine on this particular subject… Luckily my enthusiastic monologue about him to the doctor was interrupted by the ‘British subject’ Kichin. Having burst into her little office, he extended a podgy arm to the female doctor and began agitatedly to explain: ‘You see my arms? The right one doesn’t bend at the wrist. Look! With this hand they have again forced me under hypnosis to indulge in onanism! I have already sent a sharp protest to mister Trigve Lee. Fix me up with some paraffin for my right arm!’ The doctor blushed. ‘Look, Kichin, you can see that I am busy, come and see me later…’ Kichin was indignant: ‘What do you mean ‘later’? You are not taking this seriously! I am expending all my strength on masturbation, while you, criminally, stand on one side! You are pandering to Stalinist psychiatry! On Wednesday I saw in my dream a sister-Communist, with whom I had long ago broken off! When are the guilty ones going to be punished?’

144

Part 2

Having taken advantage of the embarrassment of the doctor, I made my escape from her office and went to see Zaitsev in order to confess. 65. THE BRITISH SUBJECT Viktor Davidovich Kichin grew up in Moscow, in a family of Party members. During the time of his adolescence debates, discussions and literary evenings devoted to the subject of politics were still possible. Viktor Davidovich finished his physics and mathematics course and began to teach. He was a Trotskyite, but there came a point when vocalised opposition was quietly suppressed: social evenings, when it was possible to mock even the narkom of education, were things of the past, and Viktor began to be careful about indulging in confidences, even with his favourite girlfriend. She seemed not to notice what was happening around her, and continued to be more focused on premieres and literary novelties even when the past rulers of men’s minds were on trial. On the day when Bukharin was sentenced she revealed that she wanted to see a particularly frivolous operetta. Kichin, a solitary member of the opposition, looked at her intently, stood up, and having said farewell, went out. From that day he avoided her. He decided not to talk about the arrests even with his parents and fear forever tormented him; he tried to internalise it, but felt that his hatred of Stalin was growing, just as a pathological affection for Trotsky was welling up in his heart. On the day he read about the murder of his idol, Kichin did not go to work for the first time in his life. Then on several occasions he attended a psychiatric hospital; but after the war, convinced that there were no signs of a change for the better, he decided to take action—he went to the telegraph office and sent a telegram to Stalin—just the words: ‘Halt the terror’, with his signature. The girl at the window was difficult, a wrangle began; Kichin remonstrated with this government official and demanded that she send the telegram there and then, stressing that he was a British subject. The telegraph girl decided not to contradict him, and made it look as though she was sending the text. Leaving the telegraph office, Kichin made his way to the British Embassy and demanded authentication of his British citizenship. His request, so it seemed to him, was extremely favourably received, and he left the Embassy building entirely convinced that he was from now on a citizen of Great Britain. He lived with this delusion for many years, right up to the present in fact. I saw this ‘Britisher’ for the first time through a metal grille; he was taking a stroll in the quarantine area—a corpulent man in an old fashioned suit with a waistcoat, the very image of a labourite party leader, who has just arrived, let us say, at the Congress of the Second Internationale.

Part 2

145

News about the return of Kichin from Chistopol instantly spread throughout the department—he was the butt of everyone’s jokes, just like Adzhemov, also an ex-teacher from Moscow. Adzhemov all the time socialised with certain imaginary creatures. In the middle of an entirely rational conversation he would unexpectedly open his bedside table and speak calmingly to anything that was to be found there: ‘Look, I am here,’—after which he would bang it shut and continue the interrupted conversation. When they called him to the tribunal and asked him what he would do if they released him, he replied, after some thought: ‘I would try to get them to re-make my head out of rubber, and I would then go to Moscow and destroy Soviet power.’ Kichin had to a large extent lost his marbles, and, it’s possible to say, he was only kept in our department as a result of my own efforts. One day, having arrived for supper, he suddenly looked with horror at the loudspeaker, stood up and went out, not having eaten anything, and for several days afterwards refused to go anywhere near the canteen. I regularly took food to him in the ward, and afterwards took back the empty bowls—out of respect for Great Britain, and also because I terribly missed the theatre. The production began in the morning. Kichin sat himself down at his bedside table and started writing lists. Then he called for the domestic maintenance officer; he (that was my role) quickly appeared and stood to attention, waiting for instructions. Viktor Davidovich, blinking and blowing his nose, read out his orders. ‘Maintenance Officer! I have composed an obituary for the recently deceased Ernest Bevin in Russian and English. The texts are authentic. Distribute them to the newspapers!’ The officer would carefully take them, and ask: ‘Will there be no further orders?’ ‘No, hurry up!’ Reading ‘Pravda’, which his mother used to send him, Kichin became angry—again there wasn’t a word about him! And he was unable to get English papers, although he had sent protests to the Queen, to Churchill, to the United Nations, and even to gospodin Kaganovich, whose portrait he saw in ‘Pravda’. Viktor Davidovich wrote to Stalin: ‘Gospodin Generalissimo! Your hatred of the great Trotsky and the third Russian revolution, of the Labour Party, and of me personally…’ I once ‘took umbrage’: ‘Viktor Davidovich! Why do you address me as gospodin, when you know that I am also a Social Democrat!’ ‘I didn’t know that, pardon me… comrade Gusarov. But I am a British subject, you see, and according to international custom I must address you, a citizen of another country, as gospodin. Sorry.’

146

Part 2

I had no get-out, and he continued to address me as gospodin. However, I valued Kichin not only for his fun; at times, hardly interrupting his gibberish, he would mention Kollontai, Radek, Shliapnikov and Trotsky, quote their sayings, newspaper articles, speeches, reminiscences, and in passing mention facts that were entirely unknown to me. I was drawn to those legendary revolutionary times, with which I so provoked Zaitsev. For him even Dobroliubov, together with Pisarev, were slaves of the devil. He considered Socialist Democrats even more dangerous than Communists—all the same, with God’s help, they will hang the Communists. However nobody knows what to do with the S-D’s—they act within the framework of the law, but that apart, they support the godless idea of equality. Not long ago I came across Boris Ivanovich Mokhov, the same person who, though in a Stalinist prison, still punctually received his pension. (Now General Grigorenko is refused this privilege, although he has been declared an invalid before the whole world, and for five years has been detained in a ‘hospital’. Ill, but not ill enough…) Mokhov said that he had seen Kichin, sitting on a bench on a Moscow boulevard: Boris Ivanovich went up and reminded him of Kazan, wanted to ask him about his health, about his life; but Kichin didn’t want to talk, only to say: ‘So they have freed you? Well, you can go your own way now! They have let me out, but not so that I can be among my own people…’—and with that, in Mokhov’s words, he began to blink and blow his nose. 66. ON THE SIDE OF THE PARTY Apart from Lobachevsky and Dmitri Zorin, there were other ‘destroyers of Party discipline’ in the Isolation Ward. As a rule no mental impairment was observable; perhaps influential friends saved them from the camps, just as father was protecting me. One of them was ‘Fighter’ Anatoli Petrovich Golovkin, the ex-director of a factory, who resembled the character Portos, but with a bit of extra flesh on him—the ruling comrades were accustomed to eating well and not moving around much. A worker by birth, and in youth a member of the Red Guard, Golovkin, as he grew older, began to notice that, on the delicate question of devotion to Communism, certain organs of government had acquired a monopoly of its possible interpretations: they understood this word devotion in their own unique way. Happily Anatoli Petrovich did get to understand the role of Stalin in the history of the government, but only after the war, rather late that is (regardless of one’s lack of awareness, in ’thirty-seven it would be sensible not to stand out from the crowd). But much later, rather than keeping his thoughts to himself, Golovkin wrote to Vladimirsky at the Committee of Party Control, and certainly the letter might have been quite innocent: he was a member of the party and

Part 2

147

he was interested to know when the next party congress would—at last—be held. Vladimirsky summoned him and gave him a hard time. The meeting was also attended by a young person with a penetrating gaze. Later Golovkin began to notice several individuals taking lazy strolls near his house and his factory; also there was a ‘Pobeda’ milk van that followed his car everywhere. One fine day his nerve broke, and outside the restaurant ‘Khimki’ he got hold of the starting handle from his own car and smashed the headlights of the ‘Pobeda’—there was no-one in it at the time (and this incident was not mentioned in the interrogation later on). At the first interrogation Golovkin, who from childhood spoke in street argot, observed that those who questioned him were not government employees but more like oafs from some kind of thieves’ kitchen. In order to disperse this delusion they threw Anatoli Petrovich into a punishment cell with water on the floor. But at the following meeting with the interrogator Golovkin again complained that he had fallen into the hands of a gang of crooks. Unfortunately I am not in a position to reproduce Anatoli Petrovich’s colourful account of what happened; I don’t possess enough of his vocabulary and have forgotten many of the details. Even in Kazan he did not cease to make use of his ‘refined speech’ and it became especially lurid when he was playing volleyball. The mark of a potential thief was imprinted on him, so often evident in any hereditary proletarian; but on the whole he was a peaceful, strong and cheerful person. I liked his distinctive Moscow accent, but I soon got tired of his conversation—the main theme always being: who are the winners and by how much; I, no less than he, was aware of highranking comrades but I was totally indifferent to the progress of their careers. Apart from that, people around him suspected that Golovkin had connections with the ‘godfather’—the head of the prison. Once, I remember, he observed: ‘Stalin’s ‘Nationality Question’ and ‘Problems Leninism’ must be republished,’ but mentioning the collected works didn’t elicit any reaction. Now Golovkin is the recipient of a special pension. I met him once in the square next to the Pushkin Theatre (at the time of the Botvinnik-Tal chess match), he was going along loaded with neat white packages, clearly not obtained from a shop. He recognised me instantly and asked: ‘How is Nikolai Ivanovich?’ I never talked to him about my father, but he, of course, was in the know—where and by whose influence Gusarov senior now exists; so it only remained to enquire about his health. Then Anatoli Petrovich told me he had seen Anderst, who was unable to control himself: ‘I go up to him, and I say, great to see you Anderst, how’s life? But he shies away from me and dares to shout out: ‘Citizens, here’s a chekist! Why is he clinging on to me? This is a chekist! A murderer!’’

148

Part 2

Anatoli Petrovich left me his address and telephone number; I wrote them down, but I never got around to phoning or calling on him, and I have since lost my notebook. I have simply forgotten the names of many people, but I can see them in my mind’s eye as though they were standing in front of me—an old workerBolshevik with grey mustachios, even Zaitsev would consider him a decent person; another one, also, evidently, a worker, with grey, earthy, improbably emaciated face, his teeth barely held in place, but without which his haggard cheeks would have totally collapsed. He was fond of telling a joke that he had heard in a beer-house one day: ‘Abraham came up to Stalin: Iosif Vissarionovich, sleep with my little Sarah, we want a brainy son, and this, they say, depends on the father’—’At the moment I am occupied with the Russians, but I’ll soon get free of them, beginning with these f…..g Jews’. This unfortunate man returned from the beer-house in a jolly mood, and told the joke to his neighbour; but that person knew where such jokes fetched a good price, and they arrested this father of four little children. His wife writes that he committed suicide after killing all his offspring; in any event she would not have been able to raise them by herself. And here was one particular worker, Laktionov, who possessed a ZIS car. I invited him, together with Liosha Sarkisian and Zaitsev, to join with me in celebrating Eda’s birthday. I bought a cake, some expensive sweets and rum babas, and organised a festive tea party. The guests looked through some photographs of my wife and son, but Lesha suddenly came out with: ‘Volodia, why did you marry an Armenian woman, they are all whores…’ Zaitsev and Laktionov both choked, but I did not take offence. Seeing my beaming physiognomy the others also began to smile and the meal sedately continued… Autumn was cold and grey, and in December we had some hard frosts; then, because of building repairs, they moved the sixth department. On the first of December I read in the paper about a plenum meeting of the Tula obkom—they had appointed my father first secretary. Aleksandr Zaitsev congratulated me kindly. Several days later they unexpectedly called me to a commission. Apart from me they also brought to the table a Spanish fellow, Fernandez, who was in some kind of endless dispute with himself in a language that no one could understand. Several old men who were unknown to me were sitting there, with a psychiatrist, Andreev, at the head—well known as an advocate of stern measures. Andreev looked disapprovingly at my luxurious red moustache and beard that grew down to my throat and asked: ‘Why do you cultivate this vegetation?’ ‘I am an actor. In the future I shall not have the opportunity to wear a real moustache.’

Part 2

149

‘But you’ll not want to grow a moustache if we discharge you?’ ‘No, I shan’t want to. I understand what you are saying.’ ‘But weren’t you in disagreement with something?’ ‘Yes. But there have been many changes in the country.’ ‘What in particular?’ ‘You yourselves know what these things are.’ ‘Fine. You can go now.’ I understood that I would not remain for long in Kazan, but I did not let anybody know about such a happy outcome. How could I tell somebody who has been inside longer than me, and who has no idea when he might be released? However, Zaitsev guessed, and when they ordered me not to go out for exercise, he also stayed in. I gave him my chess magazines and my party papers. When he shook my hand I noticed a reddening beneath his eyes. I gave him my address, he nodded his head… None of my attempts to find Aleksandr Iosifovich in this world were successful. Many people with the same family name replied to my enquiries, even one who was a miner, but the student from Harvard had vanished into thin air… After the arrest of Beria the investigative organs were demoralised, they even allowed me to take out of prison the file that the bookkeeper Tishchenko had given me, and they didn’t even glance at my family correspondence. I bitterly regretted not writing my diary on loose sheets of paper—they would have gone out looking like letters. In my transit accommodation the common criminals avidly listened to my speeches, until I was removed and put into a cell on my own. It was when I was about to leave that I heard a new expression—‘Beria’ man. When they gathered our group together in the prison yard, the other criminals pressed themselves against the windows, and, suddenly, having caught sight of one of us, began to whistle and hoot: ‘Oo-oo-oo, you sucker, Beria-man, mind your prick doesn’t grow out of your forehead!’ On the train they shoved me into a packed sleeping compartment at first, but later they put me somewhere else with two ‘traitors’ of the people. Later a fourth person joined us, a middle-aged Jew, who told us that, in order to save him, his wife had slept with his interrogator, and, evidently, he was already beginning to help… One of the ‘traitors’ told his story: they not only copied into the record of evidence the spy school he had graduated from, but also recorded the exact date of his recruitment. But he objected that at this particular time he was commanding a detachment of troops in the vicinity of Sevastopol; he remembered his soldiers and could name them. They answered that this was immaterial—the organs had information available and didn’t need the evidence of those who were sitting in the trenches. And they also maintained that if

150

Part 2

anyone had the luck to come out alive from Sevastopol, he would probably be disposed to believe in the work of the organs, rather than his own memory. That’s how they frighten people… The guard dogs had disappeared, and some of the prisoners, momentarily sensing weakness, were brazenfaced enough to ask if they could stroll around on the platform. And they did give permission to a number of foreigners. The freeing of the ‘Zhukov’ men pleased everyone. Dubious stories were in circulation—now they had arrested the doctors again (along with Beria); now Mikoyan himself had privately phoned one of the camps, spoken to a prisoner, and, after the conversation, had sent a plane for him—and in the plane was a general’s greatcoat and full uniform. In the end they brought me to Butyrka, again shaved everything off, cleaned me up, and then—back to the Serbsky Institute. Standing next to the bathroom was the same medical orderly —the fat unresponsive lout with protruding ears. I told him that less than an hour ago I had washed myself. He looked me up and down and listlessly drawled: ‘Washed, unwashed, it’s an instruction—just get in there…’ 67. FILM DIRECTOR KAPCHINSKY The old man moved with difficulty, trying to keep himself upright, clinging to the walls and colliding with various objects on the way, ‘flattering’ everyone without discrimination, beginning with a nurse and ending with the headdoctor, and even when there was nobody there, never ceasing his praises— how wonderful, tender, and modest were the people here!… Before the revolution Mikhail Yakovlevich Kapchinsky studied mathematics at Kiev University, but afterwards became interested in film and was made visual director to a ‘great figure’ of the cinema—he named some of the films, ‘Café Fankoni’, ‘Jewish Happiness’, ‘Behind the Monastery Wall’. Later he made the sound movie ‘Engineer Kochin’s Mistake’. But in recent years so few art films were made, that Kapchinski could no longer even dream about film production—or, for that matter, seek the satisfaction of further involvement in the scientific field. One day another film director, Ilia Frez (who had made the films ‘The Elephant and the Little Rope’ and ‘The First-class Girl’) came to work extremely upset—they had beaten up his son at school (it was the time of the doctor-poisoners, and it became dangerous for Jews to walk past beerhouses, those bastions of nationalism, or even to be seen in the street). Wishing to console his colleague, Mikhail Yakovlevich said to him: ‘Don’t take this to heart; of course it’s unpleasant, but what can you do; among certain backward sections of the population anti-Semitism is still rife…’

Part 2

151

Somebody immediately denounced Kapchinsky, and they arrested him for ‘slandering the Soviet people’. The old man spent the end of January and all of February in solitary confinement at the Lubyanka. They wouldn’t allow him to sleep. All night long Mikhail Yakovlevich had to sit in a small office with an interrogator, who, towards morning, would order: ‘Take this saboteur away!’ Very soon the old man became unable to walk, they would drag him back into his cell and throw him onto his bed, and then the cry would ring out: ‘Get up!’ The youngish interrogator abused Kapchinsky’s Jewish face and asked him not to talk rubbish. ‘You understand, Volodia,—I was telling him a load of rubbish…’ While searching his house they found several albums with strips of film (at the end of a working day cleaners sweep up these cuttings and collect them up in baskets). Kapchinsky admitted that he had purloined these bits of film from the studio. In addition, among the possessions of the director of the film ‘Behind the Monastery Wall’ they had found a Catholic cross. At the end of the war, being a lieutenant colonel in the Red Army, Kapchinsky had stayed in the flat belonging to some Hungarian Catholics, and, shunning the noise around him, passed the time reading the gospels in Latin. At his departure, his landlady gave her lodger a crucifix. Investigations revealed that this cross appeared to be the secret emblem of an espionage organisation, and it only remained to establish its members’ names; but, in spite of being tortured for one and a half months on end, Mikhail Yakovlevich stubbornly refused to name his associates. ‘Don’t sleep!’ the old man flinched whenever there was a knock on the cell door. After breakfast one day in the middle of February he sat down and became lost in thought, but just then there came a knock. ‘I am not sleeping!’ The feeding hatch opened and a Russian woman with epaulettes whispered: ‘I can see you’re not sleeping—we have brought you a meal!’ The female guard not only brought in a meal for the poor old man, but she made no attempt to interrupt his reverie. Mikhail Yakovlevich remembered well, how he gave back an empty tureen, tidied away a mug and some remnants of bread into his bedside cupboard. Then he sat down and, with his fingers, tried to fully open his eyelids, eyelids which for a whole month he had hardly been allowed to close; but where had the time gone between breakfast and supper—he did not know… Probably, those hours of forgetfulness allowed him to survive until March. And in March they suddenly stopped summoning him and left him in peace. Then, after about two weeks they summoned him again, when it was already

152

Part 2

daytime; and the same interrogator, who had been so provoked by his Jewish face, having dismissed the guard, said amiably: ‘Mikhail Yakovlevich!’ Kapchinsky flinched—‘he knows how they call me by my familiar name!’—‘I am personally convinced that you are not guilty, and I’ll put forward my opinion; but I am not the person who decides your fate… I will not summon you here anymore; but if existence here becomes too boring, just ask me and, with pleasure, I will come and talk with you—you have seen a lot, you have been abroad, it would be interesting to hear about it… I have a radio here…’—he switched on the radio and his little room filled with soft sounds, soothing to the spirit. Mikhail Yakovlevich, understanding nothing, silently wept… Then they settled him back into his cell, where, forgotten by everyone, he spent another eight months, and certainly did begin to ask favours of his interrogator. This ‘dearest young man’ did not know what to do with Kapchinsky, and those higher up didn’t know either. Finally, having held this ‘imperialist agent’ for almost a year, they could think of nothing better than to send him to the Serbsky Institute, where there were many doctors and many mental disorders—they would glean something. So now, moving with difficulty around the ward, Kapchinsky never stopped praising the wonderful personnel of the Institute and the humanity of Soviet laws. 68. INTELLIZHENS SERVIS Within my iron cage in the ‘raven’ I organised an improvised concert: I sang revolutionary songs and declaimed verses on the death of Lenin. Three of my listeners—a teacher of geography, an ex-SR and a foreigner of some kind— were in adjacent cages. The geographer later turned out to be an unpleasant troublemaker, and there is no reason to name him; the Socialist Revolutionary was Ivan Georgevich Lapshov, while the foreigner suggested that I should try and guess his nationality. He spoke very clearly and correctly without any kind of accent; but when you converse in your own language you make allowances for missing words; meanings can be implied—it was obvious that he was a student of the Russian language. ‘The Baltic republics?’ I suggested. ‘Latvian?’ ‘No.’ ‘M-m-m… Strange. Then Estonian or Finnish…?’ ‘He’s English’, the Socialist Revolutionary couldn’t restrain himself, ‘No need to guess!’

Part 2

153

Why was there no need to guess—he didn’t look like Churchill, or a bulldog for that matter; he was tall, fair, with brown hair; he was goodlooking, with eyes like those of the German in the film ‘The Rainbow’. It emerged that our companion was Earl Leonard Fortuemes, son of an English lord. But he did not resemble the Duke of Marlborough—perhaps that was because his mother was Austrian. Intelligence officer and business man, an extreme conservative, Leonard appeared one day at the office of our man in charge in Vienna and demanded an audience with Stalin, or with someone close to him. They sent him straight to the Lubyanka, where, it is true, dishes were supplied to his cell that he was able to select the previous day from a menu, but no one higher than a lieutenant-general would talk to him. Disappointed, Leonard said that if the worst came to the worst, he was ready to forward his proposals to Zhukov. Then they stopped driving him around Moscow, and, having sentenced him to fifteen years, transferred him to the Vladimirsky isolator, where they put him in the same cell as the academician Parin, the ‘medical spy’. In spite of the soft regime and a feather bed, the Englishman was dissatisfied; he could not understand how it was possible that they would incarcerate a person who had arrived with such extremely attractive proposals? After the death of Stalin Beria suddenly decided to familiarise himself with these proposals, and they brought Leonard back to Moscow; but the meeting never happened—Beria fell from grace (was it possible that, on account of Leonard, he had himself become an English spy?) Leonard was happy that he had succeeded in having dealings with the chief of the secret police—but if Zhukov cost him fifteen years, then for Beria they might have disposed of him altogether. ‘Are you an intelligence officer, Leonard?’ ‘I am an intelligence officer, but not in the Russian section; it’s stupid to call me a spy—English intelligence wouldn’t think of squandering the only son of Lord Fortuemes on some kind of wild goose chase; there are more than enough native-born Russians for that!’ He hinted that his mission was connected with Anglo-American rivalry in a Near Eastern country; and because all this was top-secret he was not free to confide in an ordinary general in the Ministry of Government Security. But now, after the lapse of so many years, Leonard was no longer certain of his own importance. ‘I’d be interested to know if your father knows where you are?’ ‘He knows the colour of my bed-cover and which wall my bed is next to.’ Leonard was a nice fellow; he hated tyranny, was proud of his country, and said that if English Communists ever came to power they would not touch the institution of the monarchy; otherwise they could hardly call themselves English. However the favourite subject of his conversation was women, and here he spared only the Queen—the English one, of course.

154

Part 2

He knew eight languages; Polish was not among those he mentioned, but when a young Polish lad joined us it was clear that Leonard could also make himself understood in that language as well. (That young man was of small stature, mischievous in a childish kind of way and had already spent three years in camps—from the age of thirteen. One day a common criminal, assuming the power of the strong, began to torment the poor beggar. I stepped in and protested; but somebody socially close to him splashed me with cabbage soup—’I’ll show this prize fool’—and I ended up in the punishment cell). Yurka Nikitchenko boasted that he could speak English, but it seemed that ambition exceeded achievement; the only person who could talk to Leonard in English was Slavka Repnikov, who had only recently left school. Leonard observed that he spoke with a New York accent, and Slava was delighted to hear that—in my opinion, this is a doubtful compliment for an English person to pay anyone. In England people still respect their aristocrats. If you became acquainted with Leonard, you would understand why—he was not at all like a Russian barin, he was no Oblomov, no Oblonsky (however honest the good-fornothing). Leonard could do anything—scrub floors, clean windows; when the barber came along he learned how to do it in a flash, and began to cut everyone’s hair. The nurses doted on him, and fed him as well as they could—he noticeably filled out and grew ever more handsome. The doctor, a Lithuanian woman with sad eyes, paid him a compliment one day, and he gallantly replied: ‘If you would give me a good time in bed later on I would get well even quicker.’ Instead of this slang expression I think he wanted to use another verb ‘give me something’—having in mind extra food. Everybody roared with laughter, the young lady blushed and ran out. On another occasion, bumping into a nurse as he exhaled cigarette smoke, he cheerfully came out with: ‘It’s good that I have blown you up!’ Everyone wanted to believe him when he told us that, on an Alpine expedition, he had cut out the appendix of a fellow climber using a fruit knife, and that it had been reported in the newspapers. There was more about him in the papers—his young wife had perished in the bombing of London; and he had led a quite scandalous life as a bachelor. Once he brought a girl in from the street and, in order to sharpen her impression of life in an earl’s mansion, suggested that she take a bath in milk. Our ‘worker’, having obtained churns of milk and filled the bath, later wrote about this cavorting in a Labour newspaper, although Leonard, in his own words, was not stingy with his tipping: ‘At that time, when ordinary British people could only buy a single carton of milk, and suffered many other deprivations, an aristocratic scion could still bathe his lover in milk.’ Leo-

Part 2

155

nard strolled around the streets of London with a leopard on a lead, and he loved to see his photograph in the newspapers. He was thirty two years old, and talked a lot more about women than about politics; in the Serbsky he took a fancy to a new head physician, a spectacular brunette with a grey streak in her hair, and dreamed aloud of marrying her (they would have made a good couple, both involved in secret work, each in their own way), a proposition not handicapped, among other things, by his already having compromised the medical sister Alla. Of course you have to take into account our erotic hunger—men in their youthful prime, with nothing to do and well fed, it is no surprise that fantasy runs high, and that stories along the lines of the ‘Decameron Nights’, or of the even more intensely stimulating ‘Intimate Tricks of Love’, continue to be thought and talked about late into the night. Leonard did not want to appear vulgar, but he tried to show that everything was permissible, where there was love and inclination, and he enthusiastically shared with us his knowledge of the science of tender passion, with his recollections of Spanish girls and black girls. But he warned that a white man should never approach a Creole woman—she will exhaust him and then slap his face. (I fear that none of us will ever have the opportunity of checking the justice of his words). Only once was he with a Russian woman, and what a fright she had given him!— she was an actress from the Red Army touring company (apparently he didn’t consider emigrants as Russian). He tried to get me to share his observations on this subject, but I answered, a little embarrassed: ‘Look, I’ll tell you something—my wife is Armenian…’—and I was easily launched into telling him about my wife, in reality the only woman for me, with whom it was so difficult to go to sleep and even more difficult to wake up… Let all those Russian beauties forgive me. 69. SR LAPSHOV Ivan Georgevich Lapshov was born into a prosperous peasant family and was the village clerk—by no means the least important person in the village. In his youth, ignited by the word ‘comrade’, he joined the party of the Socialist Revolutionaries, became a propagandist, and suffered exile. After February 1917 he sided with Chernov; then after October—he wavered. It seems that Mamontov had located one of his headquarters in their village, and on one occasion he demanded a cart from them for the delivery of a package. Lapshov’s father lent him a cart, but ordered his son to go with it—so that the horses would be returned to the farm. On the way Ivan fell into the hands of some Reds, and they took him straight to the chekists. He insisted that he was acting under duress, that he did not believe in the Whites—if he did he would have joined them, but was in fact living at home

156

Part 2

(although he might have been with them a long time ago). But, it is true, he did disapprove of the disbandment of the Constituent Assembly. The chekists thought about it for a month, and then decided to free Ivan; but at home, during his absence, the Reds hanged his father (it was from Lapshov that I heard for the first time that the Reds hanged people). Ivan went over to Denikin. He was retreating with the ‘volunteers’ to Novorossisk, but instead of finding a steamboat, he was captured. They smashed the face of the young officer and tore off his epaulettes; but, since he was a worker, they did not kill him, but assigned him to their own ranks as a regular soldier. He was in the Red Army until 1928, and almost became a brigade commander, but then it happened that in a private conversation Ivan Georgievich uttered the words: ‘An army without epaulettes is an army of deserters’, for which he was locked up. With some small interruptions he spent twenty five years in camps, and because of that, could never see the bright side of Soviet life; but not long ago he was unexpectedly freed. He spent some time in Moscow and was amazed by socialist achievements—the metro and the new, immensely tall, University building stunned him with their vast scale. So he sat down and wrote a letter to the authorities: ‘Bolsheviks have made it clear that they are able not only to destroy, but also to build’. At another time they would not have even patted him on the head for such praise; but in this period of general confusion, they gave him permission to settle in a little town in the Volga region. Ivan Georgievich married and, along with his wife, worked in a photographer’s studio, a business which he developed and fixed. But even here his evil fate did not leave him—one day he saw with his own eyes a woman with children being thrown out of her house for a nonpayment of some kind. Ivan Georgievich went into battle with the local authorities, wrote to all the departments as well as to the Saratov and Moscow papers; and he went on hunger strike. Then the organs had him arrested and he was taken back to Moscow; but there they did not begin to go into the details of his case, before straightaway sending him off to the Serbsky Institute. Now Lapshov is a very old man, but the fate of Russia and the fate of the world still occupy him—‘you will not change the history of Russia’ and ‘we must struggle to preserve peace’. At times a fierce hatred of Bolshevism boils up inside him, which even in Kazan might be startling, but is not really surprising—the suffering of Roshchin in terms of torture are sky blue compared with what Lapshov has put up with… In particular he cannot forgive the Bolsheviks for the destruction of Christianity; or for the abysmal level of people’s happiness measured against what Nekrasov would have us believe—where everyone was satisfied, even the pigs; where everyone had a roof over their heads and firewood for the winter. Widows and little children touched his heart, but above all he did not

Part 2

157

lack pride in a great nation; he praised the great construction projects, and was proud of the victory over Germany. He was an anti-Semite, often recalled the Civil War and ‘the power of the military’. One day Lapshov became very angry (that bright spark Leonard had provoked him): ‘England! Just a confounded prostitute! We asked them to send us fifty tanks—they twisted and turned and promised; but they didn’t send them. And whether or not they actually existed, I would love to take a look at Levkino’s army in their red plumes! England!’ Leonard began to explain, inconsistently, that the trade unions were threatening to go on strike, and the stevedores might not have started work. But Lapshov did not want to hear about it, and continued to curse England and the English. An officer from Belorussia (after confirming that Lenin’s mother was a Jewess) grinned and said: ‘Do you see how Lapshov gets angry? A bit more about the tanks, and before you know it he’ll be a minister!…’ Much later, after we had been given our freedom, I met Lapshov; and one of the things he said was: ‘Did they cut a five-pointed star into your skin? Denikin didn’t do that kind of thing, nor did Kolchak. But Dzerzinsky’ (that’s how he pronounced the name), ‘his young bastards used to hammer nails into officers’ epaulettes—as many nails as there were stars! He got me as well!…’ It’s awful to think about this, even now… Shepilov once told us: Dzerzhinsky, after hearing his death sentence, sat down and read something in English; but Beria, the night before his execution, occupied himself with onanism, that’s how he spent his last hours. And when he was about to be shot, Beria grovelled at the feet of the officer in charge, and couldn’t be dragged away; so the marksman, without a proper command being given, shot downwards into his head, risking damage to the officer’s foot. Whatever you say, people are very different… In the summer of 1963 Lapshov came to Moscow, wandered around, and was pleased to be able to buy an exposure meter for his camera. He couldn’t afford it; so he had to borrow some money from me. ‘Ivan Georgievich, have you read ‘One Day in the Life of Denisovich’?’ ‘Yes I have,’ he said with an evil grin, ‘your Solzhenitsyn is just a beautician. Look, I was once a carrier in a camp, and we had to take out five or ten cartfuls of bodies a day… But at least I showed some enthusiasm for my work!…’ ‘Yes, but the censors would not permit him to actually describe the corpses.’ ‘He should say it directly: ‘I was carrying out the orders of a dog!’’

158

Part 2

I began to defend the author and to show that an action was not the same thing as an order; that, whatever kind of art this was, in a relentless description of morgues and carts full of bodies, there had to be room for hope… Lapshov did not accept my arguments, although he himself was not a pessimist, and in his seventy years had learned how to enjoy life—in Moscow he searched for some kind of stimulating medicine, and dreamt that in Paris they might have sold artificial members; but from us—what is there to say… (His wife was thirty years younger than him). Lapshov died peacefully—he arrived in Saratov, and, after looking around for chemical fixative (and possibly a stimulant as well), drank down a beer; then—heart attack. His wife, with whom I was not acquainted, sent me ten roubles in the post so that I should mention Ivan Georgievich—which I am now doing. 70. THE DICTATOR Slavka Repnikov was eighteen years old. At his trial he admitted that he wanted to enrol at an institute of international relations in order to become a diplomat; in that way he would be sent abroad, and he would then flee to a Latin American country, instigate a revolution and make himself dictator. The judges were alarmed by this cunningly contrived plan, and Slavka made his appearance in our department. Many now come to the Serbsky before any trial—the trouble is, from the time they abolished the night interrogations and the standing punishment cells, the investigations often lead nowhere—however much the system cries out for results! As far as foreigners were concerned, it’s terrible to think that all this could be happening to people like Leonard: first you get fifteen years; and then afterwards you hear—‘no basis for prosecution’! No, that’s impossible: you’re told this is the most humane society in the world—so what kind of crazy outcome is this? There’s only one solution: the victim must have been ill! They fail to notice it at first; but then they say: yes, it’s an illness; so let’s cure him; after that we can return him to normal life. A Jewish poet from Vilnius, Ioshva Lantsmanas, was under investigation for a longer period than the film director Kapchinsky. He was denounced by his housing management: he had complained that the rent he paid for his flat was too high. Ioshva categorically denied this: ‘I could not have said this! What do you mean, high—ours are the lowest rents in the world! And what kind of climate do we have? An ideal climate! And the people, they are like gold! And what wise politics! There are still a lot of bad Jews, it is true, but they are re-educating themselves. And they are rejoicing along with all the other Soviet people! And I too am rejoicing (however much you torture me to death…)’ The interrogator, apparently, turned out to be inept and lacking

Part 2

159

in imagination—so, apart from the rent, he was unable to add anything to the charge sheet. These days they won’t send you to trial with that level of guilt, so it was off to the Serbsky with him! Daniil Romanovich Lunts loved to smile, he smiled at everyone—terrorists, spies, dictators; Lantsmanas alone he frowningly avoided. ‘He’s afraid that they might fail to suspect him of being sympathetic towards me’, explained Ioshva. And so the psychiatrists save the muddled interrogators; but there must be a limit that is clear to everyone: the Institute is not made of rubber! If all these people are innocent of crime, then indeed you cannot take them from their homes and send them to prison. But how can you not take them, when the enemies are in clear view—and if they do have to take in this Socialist Revolutionary devil Lapshov, why did they allow him to emerge alive from the camp in the first place; now he knows all the rules better than any of the interrogators; he attracts the attention of those around him and spreads provocation … And don’t touch the Jews either… Now they are telling the interrogation department, change course! But as you know the rotters are resisting. Well, what about getting yourself on the payroll instead of them!… So the last hope of the government lies with the psychiatrists: are there signs of nervousness, abnormal behaviour, oblivious serenity? Perhaps the prisoner doesn’t understand the situation he is in, or persistently asserts his innocence—all these are signs of mental incapacity… Admittedly, it is very difficult to maintain Olympian calm in a madhouse; every now and again, somebody breaks loose. The Lithuanian from the Kazan camps cuts himself with a mattress wire—Leonard jumps onto the bed with fright. ‘Bastards! The Soviets offered us a helping hand, a fucking helping hand! Who asked them? Who asked them?’—and he continues to slash himself with the wire, blood all over the place—the medical orderlies are afraid to go near him. And then there was the time when a Polish fellow also had a hysterical episode, and began to shout: ‘Saviours! Redeemers! Their truth is buried seven metres under the ground!’ And I am as bad as the others—I make revelatory speeches by the hour, all the stuff that’s been heard in Kazan and other places—it all gushes out of me. Earlier, when I was free, it was possible see my unbalanced state by observing my drunkenness, my dissipation. But it is surely impossible to know why you get drunk, or how you come to have such an awful disposition; or, on the other hand, whether alcohol itself has a depressive effect. In this place I was certainly not drinking; yet, at times, not only were my arms unresponsive to my wishes, but even my legs were giving way under me. Just as, at other times, I could suddenly flare up and start shouting.

160

Part 2

They brought to us a poet and songwriter M. Vershinin, composer of the song ‘Moscow-Peking’; he began to tell us how splendid Stalin looked in his coffin; but in the papers—what tactlessness!—during the four days while he was still alive after his stroke, there was not one warm or sincere word of sympathy. They just stopped printing the usual greetings, and continued labouring as before over economic and linguistic problems; although factual bulletins were printed telling us about ‘his respiration rates according to Chein and Stokes’… And again Mikhalkov—what an ignoramus! Iosif Vissarionovich had raised a toast in his honour, and he—can you imagine the embarrassment—replied: ‘To the health of Ch-ch-ch-inese children!’ At this point I exploded and began my shouting, and the guard was a bit scared: ‘Shut up Vershinin, you lackey! They have put you in here, and you seem to be completely over the moon! You are just a lot of despicable Stalinist flunkies! Which of their banquets did you go to for your bright ideas? Just remember, your Stalin is a bandit! A bandit just like Beria! It’s because of this riff-raff that I am locked up in here—and don’t you dare talk to me about your love for them! He says he is delighted with Communism! They’re all just a cowardly gang of stooges!’ They gave me something to drink, wrapped my head in a towel, and I went to sleep. When I woke up, I thought: what a shame this is all happening to me—a good-for-nothing—just another victim of the regime. They arrested Vershinin because, after the death of Stalin, he had managed to write a play about the revolutionary activity of Beria; and, more than that, he was a friend of his nephew (who, it later emerged, had been responsible for informing on the writer). True, Vershinin did write a song in which Malenkov tries to kiss the party of the people at a point just below the base of the spine. A joke gets it to perfection: what’s the point of complaining: ‘My tongue is my enemy’—the real trouble is you choose the wrong arse to lick!’ ‘It’s so difficult to get on in the world’, whined Vershinin. To which I replied: ‘What you’re saying is: why can’t I be like Babaevsky. But surely he also had a hard life until they began to print his work. And Orest Maltsev— he managed to exist in a little room of no more than ten square metres. Now look, he’s got a dacha and a car…’ It looks as though Vershinin himself might have made his way in life— the whole country was listening to: In the whole world there’s no stronger bond! Celebrating May in our ranks together – The Soviet Union marches forward, The Soviet Union ever powerful, And alongside us marches the new China!

Part 2

161

—but things have changed, fortune is blind; and that’s why he’s ended up at the Serbsky. And it soon became obvious to him that those bonds of friendship were not what they seemed to be… ‘So, you feel sorry for Bukharin’, our poet continued, ‘but he tormented Yesenin as well as Mayakovsky…’ All the same the atmosphere did become more good-humoured: nobody among us was condemned to death, there wasn’t a single weeping forester or Armenian nationalist. And there was some pleasure to be had in just looking at Leonard Fortuemes: he had attached braid to the back of his dressing gown, and made some elegant pleats; while raising the collar by sewing some towelling underneath it—well that’s how it is for an earl! But he thinks nothing of getting down to polishing the floors. Look how he works—easily, elegantly, with satisfaction. But having finished his labours, he’s not happy with the five nails (prison tokens) that we brothers expect—he demands a bath every day—typical imperialist!… The dark-skinned hoodlum—the one whom I hit on the head with a ladle in order to free the Polish boy—sings more sweetly than Kolka, with a tremolo gipsy voice that has a swooping attack, rather like Ruslanov’s: ‘Aksana, Aksa-a-a-na, I remember your voice, carried on the wind from our very own Ukraine…’ And in the isolation unit he was not silent for a minute: ‘Soon I’ll return to our beloved town, and in the first light of dawn I’ll hold you in my arms again…’ Compared with my past behaviour within these walls, I myself made some changes—I no longer crept under the bed, or referred to ‘Brutus, who sold himself to the Bolsheviks’. A female postgraduate student practised using an electro-encephalograph on me, and a smiling Lunts chatted politely. They did in the end summon me to a commission, and afterwards ‘Queen Margot’ urged me: ‘The Institute, in discharging you, takes upon itself a big responsibility. See that you don’t let us down!’ A year later I met one of the nurses from the Serbsky in a shop near the Moscow Aviation Institute; she noticed me first, we got talking, and she told me that the beautiful head nurse with the grey streak in her hair, whom Leonard had dreamed of marrying, after my tribunal said: ‘If they can set free people like Gusarov, then I just cannot understand anything anymore— what’s happening to us in this country? What are those at the top thinking about?’ About ten years later, while I was waiting for Eda outside the metro, I caught sight of ‘Queen Margot’. We remembered Slava Repnikov. As soon as the organs had recovered from their fear, they took the fellow in again; and this time no talk about dictators was of any help to him—they gave him ten years.

162

Part 2

‘You know, Margarita Feliksovna,’ I said, ‘I often think about the Institute; right now I would give a hundred roubles just to spend a night in ‘parliament’…’ ‘Gusarov, you’re right to be grateful to the Institute,’—and she gave me a meaningful look. 71. BUTYRKA Khrushchev promised to liquidate both Butyrka and Taganka; I don’t know about Taganka, but Butyrka survived. For a time I worked in the literary theatre of the All-Russia Theatre Company, in the club belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was located in Gorlov Street, and from its windows, however much they would like to have hidden it, the prison was clearly visible. In fact they only demolished the administrative building and the staff living quarters, whose windows were also barred. These used to look out onto Novoslobodskaya and Lesnaya Streets. They replaced these dismal buildings with cheerful ‘Khrushchev-style’ blocks of flats with balconies. Butyrka prison is a huge complex that would take more than an hour to walk around. At the centre is a small hospital—a separate building, partly two-storeys high and partly three. It was here that I spent the last week of my detention. One of my three neighbours was a real madman—with dilated black eyes, he was completely absorbed in his bitter thoughts and did not reply to questions. Unexpectedly he would look around and begin to reproach us—why were we tapping into his brain?… Or he would suddenly throw himself onto one of us, and begin to scratch and bite. On my second day there, after one of these violent attacks, they took him away and we were able to breathe more easily. The other two were Vladimir Pepper and Kolya Khokhlov. Pepper was Russian, but was born in Finland after the Revolution. Valiant chekists kidnapped him from Helsinki: during one of the ‘white nights’ of the summer they went into a house wearing Finnish police uniforms and spirited him away back to the motherland; so he was able to greet the next morning in the Lubyanka. (I learned of another incident when, even in Paris, they were able to seize a person. One can only be surprised by how highly people are valued in our country!) Vladimir’s crime was serious. He had fought in the ranks of the Finnish army against his historical motherland—in fact, he didn’t just fight, he lost a leg to show for it. (Who knows, perhaps the whole Finnish war was fought just for the repossession of men like Pepper, and for similar enterprises). But here, in a classless society, it was difficult to make use of him; without a leg

Part 2

163

he was quite unfit for the great construction work; keeping him in prison seems to have been the only alternative. There was no need to go out and seize Khokhlov—to steal our own goods, that is. A country boy, they took him straight from his mother’s house into Vlasov’s army— when it was on the German side. He served in a construction battalion; he was only involved in wielding a spade. The English interned him and they moved him to Bremen. Some good people tried to dissuade him from returning to Russia, but Kolya did not follow this advice—he crossed Europe on foot, and finally ended up among his own people. At first they didn’t do anything bad to him, and he was enlisted for military service, along with other young men of the same age; and he finished active service as a general’s orderly. Then he was demobilised as a trustworthy civilian. After the army he became a miner, and got married; but his wife did not get on with her mother-in-law, and, having moved out, they went in search of happiness. It was at this point that they arrested Kolya and sentenced him to twenty-five years (two years longer than he had so far managed to survive on this earth). He was guilty of no crime against anybody other than himself—had he not left his mother, nothing would have happened; and he was not forced to obey his wife. In the camp he trained to be a mine surveyor, and became a superintendent. Alongside him in the camp were many from the Baltic states; all of them, according to Kolya, disliked Russians for some reason, and threatened: ‘You wait, when the Americans come we shall get our own back!…’ One day Khokhlov was almost knocked to the ground by a piece of rock. As a result of all this he has become fearful. He has not touched prison food—how could he know it wasn’t poisoned? So he has been feeding himself on what he can buy in the prison shop. They bring in some gruel, I try a spoonful, then another—Kolya looks on, then he can bear it no longer and says: ‘Let’s swap!’ I am holding the untouched gruel, but he eats up the whole of my portion. (So as not to deprive the poor beggar I later try to take just a small mouthful at each meal). Sometimes he knocks on the door and begins to rebuke the guard: ‘Why are you like this? I can hear everything, you know… No, I heard you whispering in the corridor: tomorrow this small fry will be in front of the firing squad… But why? I am not like the Latvians or the Ukrainians, I am not waiting for the Americans, I am Russian… Why are things turning out like this?… No, I heard everything, you were saying: the ground is thawing, it will be easy to bury them…’ I tried to calm him: ‘Look, you idiot; if they wanted to shoot you, why did they bring you to Moscow? Perhaps at Vorkuta they might have shot you.’

164

Part 2

‘N-n-no… At Vorkuta, do you know how the land freezes? And now it has thawed… My interrogator also says: ‘Your situation has got better Nikolai,’. But I understand… They say that they themselves have brought an electric current to the bed—you lie on it—how it jerks and twitches!… No, I have heard it myself, they said: this one’s for the firing squad…’ But there were minutes when Kolya was at peace with himself and even dreamed of women. These dreams were romantic and free of anything that was trite. Life in the army and life in the camps provided little enough opportunity, poor fellow, for romantic caresses, but he remembers and touchingly re-lives the few encounters that he was able to enjoy—how he embraced, how he kissed. It did not grieve him if there was nothing more apart from embraces and kisses; as he saw it, there were many of them and that in itself was fine; but about those few with whom ‘there was something special’ he was ready to talk endlessly, and in the most loving terms. Here, in the Butyrka, he grins meaningfully at one of the ‘sisters’, a glum, callous woman. (Returned home, I wrote to Kolya’s elder brother, Vladimir. He came to me from Leningrad, in a bad state, shabbily dressed, carrying a railwayman’s leather bag. He sat in our kitchen and wept, listening to my account of his brother. I tried to reassure him that Kolya would soon be released. I hope my words came true.) But now, to replace the wild madman, they brought in a stocky German, a Communist called Evalt Frantsevich Geshvent. He received some nice parcels from the International Red Cross and treated us to chocolate and expensive tobacco. The tobacco was strange—long thin shreds, sweet to the taste. Geshvent smoked without inhaling. In spite of the help from the Red Cross, he had become ill with tuberculosis in the prison, and was doing his best to spare his lungs. ‘When I had completed five years of my sentence, I observed ten days of private mourning and did not smoke; but as time went on I began to smoke again, but I took the trouble not to inhale…’ He spoke Russian very well, not with a German but a Ukrainian accent— where he grew up. But then his family moved to Germany. When Hitler came to power, they arrested Evalt—by that time twenty-seven years old, and a Communist. Fortunately for him he was not involved with the Gestapo, and his trial was a regular one, with all the correct legal procedures; and he served a three-year sentence. They had not forced him to study Nazi theory or listen to the Führer’s speeches, although they had suggested that he put his signature to a piece of paper repudiating his views. He refused. This would not have resulted in his sentence being increased, but his signature might have shortened it. (Our political prisoners do not have such freedom of choice; and, as one, they all have to undertake political education, otherwise they simply die of starvation. But, at the time I am writing about, there was

Part 2

165

complete confusion—some sobbed over Stalin and lost any hope they had for the future, while others shouted hurrah and threw their caps in the air.) Coming out of prison Evalt got a job in a tannery. His boss was not sympathetic to Nazism, and they became friends. In addition Geshvent was good at his job—after the invasion of the USSR his boss recommended him to General Kokh himself, and as a result Evalt was made a director of the Berdichev Leather Combine. Herr Direktor resolutely tried to make connections with the partisans— but local people did not want to have anything to do with them; on the contrary, they were keen to hand over Jews and Communists to the authorities. However Geshvent did find one person who shared his convictions, and that was his Ukrainian chauffeur. One day a group of SS officers enjoying Evalt’s hospitality got drunk. The host requested his chauffeur to take his guests on a drive—but the car fell into a ravine; true everyone stayed alive, but not without trauma. And the chauffeur managed to jump out. The Hitlerite administration accused Geshvent of sabotage—for a year the leather combine failed to begin operations. And some people came in the night and tried to kill him. Evalt supposes they were a punitive group who wanted to quietly dispose of him and then blame everything on some mythical partisans. But shots were exchanged, and the insurgents disappeared. In the morning Evalt set fire to the still idle factory and scarpered. For almost three years he was forced to hide. Only his wife and a very few friends were able to help him. He met his sister once and she wept: ‘I thought you had done something bad, Evalt—that you had betrayed your country, betrayed your people!’ The end of the war was at last in sight. They sent him the password: ‘Do you know Friedrich Volf?’ He made an appearance at some sort of headquarters where everyone was completely drunk; they didn’t know any of the passwords, and didn’t want to know them. But one of the senior officers agreed to quiz him: ‘You say you are a Communist… Then tell me—what is Stalin’s nationality?’ ‘Comrade Stalin is a Georgian, he was born in Gori…’ ‘A lie, you don’t know anything! Stalin’s a Jew!’ Somebody was summoned to shoot the Fascist; he led him away a little distance, fired into the air, and whispered: ‘Run for it!’ Later the Germans again hemmed in the Russians, and in their jubilations hanged Evalt’s mother (he himself managed to conceal himself), they even published a photo of her in the newspaper: ‘she tried to persuade us not to be afraid of the Russians.’ But soon final victory was achieved, and as normality returned, Evalt Frantsevich Geshvent was appointed ‘civilian commissar’ of legalised evacuation (not flight) from the motherland. He was a witness of endless robberies and acts of violence (including gang rape) and, unable to

166

Part 2

restrain himself, issued an official protest—so they threw the civilian commissar into a troop train and sent him eastwards… In the Urals they wanted to hush up the affair—they issued him with a Soviet passport, so he would be considered a Soviet German who had spent the whole war working in a factory in the Urals area; but Geshvent was obstinate, and the result was that they judged him to be a war criminal. He had performed acts of atrocity, betrayed Communists and occupied himself in theft. What can you do in such a regime; you don’t have many choices— either you are a victim or a hangman. Geshvent had no idea how, in a Soviet trial, the prosecution can be distinguished from the defence—both sides demanded the same severe penalties. Geshvent admitted the guilt of the German people, but considered that those who were not involved in wrongdoing should not suffer punishment. He was a Communist, nevertheless he thought that God and morals were necessary—a person must know that there is Somebody always with him, and that all his crimes are known. In denying the existence of a Judge we encourage vice and increase criminality. Atheism is fruitless. Christian marriage is stronger because it is sustained by the fear of God… It was his contention that we must put in better order the relationship between the sexes; sexual life must not be turned into an everyday recreation. Physiologically a woman needs a man only once a month in the middle of her monthly cycle; at other times one must occupy oneself with useful work and sensible amusements, there were other ways of expressing your feelings for a friend; spouses should not sleep together, rifts in relationships open up precisely as a result of sensuality losing its edge. Most important of all, marriage must be sanctified by faith… Evalt sang to me some songs of Ernst Bush, and I sang some of our songs to him; he recognised them and was able to sing some of those as well. When I sang the one about the young drummer boy he exclaimed: ‘This is Der Kleine Trompeter!’ (the little trumpeter), and he sang something on the same theme. He told me about the struggle of Communists and Social Democrats with the Fascists. They all went around in their own military uniforms, but the ordinary soldiers did not show malice towards each other; but there was conflict at the top of the hierarchy. I recalled words from a text-book of Emelyan Yaroslavsky, which at one time really surprised me: ‘The workers’ parties are the largest parties in the Reichstag: Communist, Social Democrat and Social Nationalist.’ It was from Geshvent that I learned that in Hitlerite Germany salary was paid not on the basis of the post held but on length of service, so that a railway points-man could earn more than a station manager. In response to some of my observations Evalt was upset and sighed:

Part 2

167

‘Your Russian officials look back to their own youthful past and totally ignore the needs of today’s rising generation…’ And he was forever repeating the phrase: ‘To understand this question we ought to think about it like this…’ He once remarked that the survival of Russia depends entirely on its women: ‘If it weren’t for your women you would long ago have squandered your people and your revolution in drink—they are stronger than you…’—adding that if he lost his wife he would only marry a Russian woman. 72. WITH YOUR THINGS I said goodbye to Volodia Pepper and Kolya Khokhlov, Evalt and I even kissed each other—such mutual affection between Fascists shocked the guard. (After a month I received a postcard from him, for some reason addressed with my mother’s name. The ‘Party Chief’ (the nickname I had given him) wrote from a transit camp; he was going back to his homeland, which of course was the GDR). They kept me in a small room for an hour, and afterwards took me to a spacious office where there was a large portrait on the wall, but I don’t remember whose it was. Shokin, the prison governor, in the presence of mama, formally announced my release ‘under nominated supervision’; and he filled out a form where it was written that I was obliged to live in Tula (from where the wind of influence blows). I said to the colonel that I was not going anywhere, that it would be better to remain in prison than to begin to live in a place where my father had another family. My mother, wife and son lived in Moscow. He silently crossed out Tula and wrote their Moscow address above it, and in the margin: ‘into the care of his mother’. Although, of course, it was supposed to read: into the care of his father, First Secretary of the obkom. Out of embarrassment mama and I did not greet each other. We listened to the parting words of the colonel, and after about five minutes made our way across the territory of the prison, every now and again looking at my release certificate, and then coming out into Novoslobodskaya Street. For some reason we didn’t go towards the metro, but went off in the opposite direction… But, whatever the difference, the world is round after all. Gusarov Vladimir Nikolaevich, Moscow A-80, Savrasov Street, House 6, Flat 3 P.S. Five typewriters confiscated from Ilya Gabai, only three from Piotr Grigorevich Grigorenko, but one of these is mine, a Czechoslovakian ‘Consul’. Not only typewriters are being retained. But if nothing happens to me, the second part will be ready by the beginning of 1970 and distributed by samizdat with the right of unlimited reprinting.

Part 2

168

V. Gusarov

Further postscript, handwritten: This copy lay under the ground through a summer and a winter; it has got damp and has begun to decompose. It seemed to me that this was a rough copy from which I was going do a second variant: certain readers have upbraided me for writing about sex with so much relish and other sins. But during May at the time of Amalrik’s arrest they took the last, and incidentally the clearest, copy. So this, the remaining one, is the one to go for. But I must hurry. V. Gusarov 7.VII.70

(Reprinted by the author. 1 September 1975).

Part 3

73. HOW LIFE TREATED ME WHEN I WAS FREE I was unable to get down to work during the spring and summer of ’fiftyfour; in the spring I was even afraid to go out of the house. Then in the summer I met V. V. Gotovtsev and from him learned that the Moscow Arts Theatre was running a competition. I went there, auditioned successfully, and afterwards phoned them; a woman’s voice answered: ‘You have been accepted’. But the new recruits department quickly cooled my ardour: ‘Why was your passport issued on the basis of information supplied by Butyrka prison?’ I hesitated and began to mumble on about my illness, that I was now well again, but had spent some time in a hospital of the Ministry of Internal Affairs; and that they had discharged me from the prison office—however there was no conviction or prison sentence. ‘And what was that all about?’ ‘Delirium Tremens, I just went on talking too much…’ ‘Understood… So they didn’t inform you that you would be given a second chance. Phone us and find out what we can do…’ But phoning didn’t achieve any results; it was clear that my second chance was being put off indefinitely. I presented myself at the Red Army Theatre. Dima Borodin heard me perform—a serious, honest, hardworking actor, more restrained than I was. The directors Okunchikov and Lvov-Anokhin watched me, and again I was accepted. This time they didn’t say anything about a second chance, the person in charge of personnel in the company, G. I. Shagaev, said: ‘The trouble is, they have not given us the resources that we were counting on to fill this post.’ 169

170

Part 3

It looked as though my audition was arranged for the entertainment of the directors. As a result of these searing experiences I quietly began to drink again. My father arrived—with implacable anger: ‘Gone back to your old habits? You compare the leader of the foremost part of humanity with Hitler! You are not ill, you are the enemy!’ He went off in a rush, clutching at his heart. I went down after him—he was sitting on a bench sucking validol tablets. He cannot just leave—he’s got to do something, he’s got to convince me that I must make contact with somebody who can help me… Through the Central Committee, the militia quickly issued me with another passport; the head of the passport department was surprised that I myself had not thought to ‘lose’ it, and was still looking for work! (The law is for fools; somebody with brains can always find a way of getting around it). In application forms I now only wrote about illness—that I had been ill for two years or so. They auditioned me at the Youth Theatre, central children’s department; but in these theatres, even without application forms, they got to know my whole history; and the tutor of the central children’s department later told me: ‘Volodia, we were all for taking you, but Knebel only had to make the comment: ‘We have already got enough drunkards.’’ I was beginning to think that the problem was not only about my past. Say what you like, but at twenty-nine years I was already over the hill so far as the children’s theatre was concerned. And who knows, perhaps I did look a bit seedy. If I myself feel that I lack the spark of youth, won’t this be obvious to others?… I went to see the head of the Bolshoi F. V. Yevseev. He sat at a big table and sternly reminded me that all Soviet people enjoy equal rights. ‘Let’s see your stuff; and if it really is as you say, that you are likely to have difficulties with the personnel department, then come and see me.’ The Jews have a reputation for sticking together. Us Jews, we were lucky— We don’t need to hide under a false flag; Evil came to us without a mask, It doesn’t pretend to be a virtue. ‘All Soviet people are equal’; it’s true Semitic traits are so distinct that you don’t need to look in their passport. So, by acquiring my own distinct, but different, label, I too came to be side-lined. They found a more suitable person for this position: for me at any rate—no vacancies.

Part 3

171

However, in September I did succeed in signing a contract with the Sverdlovsk Film Studio, and for half a year was occupied with making a film called ‘Train Chief’. In the file-index system of Mosfilm the question of who had spent time in prison might have escaped attention; it perhaps was noted that I knew some German and could sing. When he knew how I had filled in the application form one of the actors Misha Vorobev laughed. ‘If the director asks if you can drive a car, you must say: I can drive! Do you know any languages? I know them all perfectly! I can sing, dance, do a triple somersault! They won’t ask you to do any of those things; but, if they do, you just say that nothing like that was mentioned at the interview. One of the cameramen, T. Z. Bunimovich, on learning that I was a firstranking chess player, said: ‘He’s just the right person for me’. (He was a laureate of the Stalin prize; but in the Sverdlovsk studio they drove him to distraction on account of the fact that his ex-wife had married an Englishman, and that she had left the country taking their son with her. And for good measure they deprived him of his Party card as well). Our film was made ‘on the personal orders of comrade Kaganovich’ and had its beginnings in a quotation from one of his speeches. In the very first trial footage Misha Vorobev was drunk and ‘borrowed’ ten roubles from me. The whole group thought this was terribly amusing; but I did not give him any more money, and when he went on pestering me I said: ‘I’ll give you my soul if that’s what you want, Mikhail Sergeevich, but I cannot give you any more money.’ Although, it has to be admitted, I have never in my life earned so much— 120 roubles—almost as much as a district militiaman at the start of his career. The fact was, I was playing the lead role. Later I came to understand that it was easier to substitute a railway engine or even a whole railway terminus than just one actor, when there was a lot of expensive footage in the can. In the theatre it’s different of course; even if Zharov himself or Plyatt give notice to quit, many others would be only delighted to step into the breach. And in our theatres it’s not a question of competition or spectator preference; decisions are made by the authorities. ‘What the film actor knows very well is that we are dependent on him,’ the director Aleksandrov said to me blinking his eyes submissively, ‘so he can get up to all kinds of tricks…’ Living is easier for the actor now, because apart from the cinema there is television. Work in films is uninteresting: you feel you are really just a pawn in the game; and they don’t necessarily use the take where you did your best bit of acting—perhaps the rain on the window didn’t look so good. That’s why they pay you more than in the theatre; and of course you are a celebrity. On the set the actor is disconnected from the script and its subject; he just plays the role, as it were, of the drunken buffoon. And if he arrives late, he

172

Part 3

dumbly insists: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’ve been here all the time.’ Others on the set are quick with: ‘Yes, he was here the whole time, I saw him.’ If they catch him red-handed and drive him into a corner, then he’ll say: ‘Well, I must have been dreaming…’ And the whole pointless uproar goes on: when they have been searching for the actor, shouting, threatening him with every punishment—suddenly here he is; but now it turns out that they have forgotten his overcoat. So they have to chase after the missing property. Finally both actor and coat are in place and ready for action—until someone remembers that the coat has to be wet, from the rain. They rush off for a bucket of water… The actor dozes, and asks himself, what’s the hurry? In scenes shot outdoors time is often wasted unavoidably—they never plan for bad weather, but it’s bound to happen. And waiting for the weather, the assembled company enjoys some friendly drinking, hard drinking for preference. Once, when we were in a monastery in Roslavl—well, now it’s just a church, with a hotel attached to it with creaking floors—I knocked on the director’s door: ‘One moment!’ I go in—they are all there—Trituz, the director, and Aleksandrov, and Bunimovich, and a grey-haired assistant, and the electrician Grisha Pomerantsev, and Vorobev—sitting around a table having a friendly chat—on the table were some savoury dishes, quite dry, with not a bottle in sight. Strange, I am thinking, that so many grown-up people, some of them quite elderly, have come together just to eat tinned food and yesterday’s boiled potatoes— which might have gone down more easily if they had brewed some tea perhaps. And a samovar would not have looked out of place in those antique surroundings… But I sat down, and then began to look more intently at what was in front of me; and suddenly noticed that under the table was a large rack of wine bottles. Then one of these was surreptitiously pulled out, passed around the table and hastily put back—God save us if somebody begins to suspect this group of drunkenness. People from the provinces are uneducated, it would be difficult to explain to them that it’s impossible to work when it’s actually raining (on the other hand we rely on the fire service to make pretend rain even when the sun’s shining). So the watchword of the filmmaker on location is ‘We’re always at work’. It’s particularly important to be on one’s guard with hotel personnel, who might ‘inform’ on you. You may be unaware of this at the time, but the information might be kept for years—then unexpectedly it could pop out of somebody’s notebook, underpinned by the ominous formula: ‘and this was by no means just an isolated occurrence…’ The priest belonging to the church lived nearby, a man not yet old. One day our football, which belonged to the union, rolled into his front garden.

Part 3

173

For some reason they all decided that I was the only person capable of negotiating with church officials, and I was directed to retrieve the ball. The priest had not long returned from doing time in the camps. Of course I did not ask him: ‘For what?’ Only Soviet people who are very simple ask that question. But I did once ask him, what were the chances of us having another revolution? He just shook his head. It seemed strange for me to be walking around a small town with a priest, but I valued these meetings; in his company I felt myself to be much more agreeable and light-hearted than with my card-playing colleagues, forever defending ‘the honour of the Soviet Collective’ (a personal sense of honour had long ago been abandoned…) One day in Roslavl I called in at a beer-house, and as I was standing there waiting to be served I could see that everyone present, including the girl behind the bar, were looking apprehensively at a glass of beer that was standing alone on one of the little tables. I wanted to know why it was holding their attention, and was told that a very suspicious-looking person had ordered the beer, and then, after wandering among the tables for a long time with the glass in his hand, had finally left without drinking any of it. Everybody imagined that he must be a spy or saboteur, or perhaps a murderer. I picked up the glass containing the deadly poison and drank it down. They were all aghast. ‘How much do I owe you?’ I asked the bargirl. ‘Oh, nothing,’ she mumbled. Then I asked for a second glass, which I was going to pay for (only I didn’t have any more money on me). I made my exit, followed by the stare of a dumbfounded audience. The mysterious malefactor, perhaps, was in a similar predicament. When he cannot resist what his eyes seem to be offering him, he takes, but then cannot drink. Since our film was concerned with railways, we had to have a group of consultant railwaymen attached to us, and also a locomotive and a freight train. We lived all together like a family in one of the wagons. The railway people spent all their remuneration in one night of drinking, and then for two weeks ate nothing but potatoes, which they stole from a nearby warehouse. One day they went off together with our film crew to see a film—without payment of course. Left by myself in the wagon, I couldn’t restrain myself from switching on the radio belonging to the director Trituz, although Mikhail Zinovevich had strictly forbidden us to tune in to ‘Voice of America’ or any other enemy station. There was no jamming in Roslavl, and reception was fine; so, having settled myself down comfortably, I closed my eyes and enjoyed myself with a completely different line of thought. They were talking about Soviet literature.

174

Part 3

Unexpectedly the door swung open and the railwaymen tumbled in. It would have been a bit awkward to switch off the radio in a hurry—I could go out, but for them it was impossible. I asked, why so soon?—‘They didn’t manage to get the film’. The railwaymen all sat down and began to listen attentively. Soviet writers were being reviled for their servility, for writing material to Party orders, and there were quotations from Tolstoy and Chekhov to reinforce the argument. Suddenly I hear the door opening again— Trituz. In a trice I have slipped down from the top bunk and switched off the radio. The railwaymen looked at me in surprise and exchanged glances— thinking: ‘What is this, isn’t it ours?’ ‘Didn’t you hear them say: ‘Soviet writers, don’t be like squawking parrots!’? ‘Yes, but Tolstoy, Chekhov…’ The railwaymen hadn’t heard such views before; they were still thinking that only those listening to Hitler would be sent into exile. Even though I was slightly drunk I did try to prove something, to make something clear to them; they listened and smiled. I may have failed in the attempt—my tongue was still working; but now my legs refused to operate. So, very carefully, they carried me back to my bunk and laid me down to sleep. They were saying: ‘Wasn’t he speaking beautifully, he must be a real artist…’ Misha Trituz’s eyes were sad, like Yursky’s—he was anxious about the bad weather and all the time that was being wasted; one night he even saw Beria in his dreams, who promised to say something to him in his own very individual way. For a month we waited back in Moscow for the weather to change, staying with another group of people from the Sverdlovsk film studio. Then in December we went off to chase the weather in Adler on the Black Sea coast, but once again we had to return to Moscow. During February and March we eventually completed the film in studios in Sverdlovsk. The result was that the work originally planned to take one and a half to two months was only finished in half a year. In Sverdlovsk I saw the disgraced Chaureli, also Pravov, to whom citizen’s rights had still not been restored. He directed the film ‘A Young Man from the Taiga’, and, with tears in his eyes, related how, when he was newly arrived in Moscow and entirely unknown, the actor Ivan Pereverzev took him under his wing and employed him in one of his films. Pravov did not forget the favour, and later invited Pereverzev to take a part in his film ‘In Thrall to Gold’ based on a story by Mamin-Sibiryak. Taking into account my two year’s absence, I now had to think about getting my time of employment in a film studio entered into my work records; but I was only able do this with great effort, and by illegal means.

Part 3

175

74. AMOROUS BUSINESS A demon seized me in Adler—I wanted a woman. On the first night, lying in bed in a separate room and listening to the distant sound of the sea, I couldn’t sleep for a long time. Like all the others I sent my salary home, and lived on a daily allowance of twenty five roubles (try living in repertory today on 250!) They were selling a dry wine in the market for two roubles a glass, and they would give you half a glass to sample. Returning from the market with unsteady step I never ceased to be surprised by the rows of beer and vodka stalls where the locals gathered. Many of them had their own wine back at home, but in the market there were free samples in abundance, so why spend the money? With the onset of the winter it was impossible to shoot as much film outdoors as we did in the summer. The rain froze and everyone else sat around playing cards, while I loafed around the town. One day I started chatting with a friendly brunette of about my age, well built and not very tall. ‘Can you tell me how to get to the post office?’ ‘You’re standing right next to it!’ It was this exchange that brought us together—‘it’s because of the potatoes that you set light to the firewood’, as the saying goes. The woman gave me to understand, very simply and naturally, that she was not against having a conversation with me; and that, although it wasn’t the weather for going for a stroll, she happened to be living in a communal apartment nearby. A couple of days later I was leaving the market in a somewhat inflamed mood—it seemed as though every cell, every vein in my body was awash with wine—and I again bumped into the same brunette. I was carrying in my hands a speckled hen with clipped wings, which they had palmed off on me for more than twenty roubles. Now I was finally ready for the evil soldier’s conversation. The woman took me into her hostel, where we got rid of the chicken, and were able to buy several bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka, and headed off to her lodgings. There were five or six beds in the room, as well as a table, some simple chairs and stools—but neither curtains nor screens. My friend’s bed was different from the others: the bedposts were embellished with four shining nickel-plated balls, and there was a heap of cushions on the bed itself. There was a cloth on the wall—celluloid swans were floating against a background of a burgher’s castle. It was all in good taste—I rattled on without stopping; the girls listened intently, sipping the dry wine (they didn’t touch the vodka, so I had to drink that myself). Towards nightfall I got ready to go, the girls protested in a friendly way: Where to? Rain! Five kilometres!… I made out that I had nowhere to sleep, then my lady, a Cossack from the Kuban region, took from

176

Part 3

the heap one of the smallest cushions and said that this will be a fence between us. Everyone thought that this was a good solution, so I stayed. The owner of the lollipop bed was depending not so much on the tiny cushion as on the expectation that her flatmates would soon fall asleep, and in a whisper she asked me to wait. I have an especially nervous disposition and outside my customary marital bed I am usually fit for nothing, and in this particular situation I had also to worry about the possible consequences of what could be about to happen. I don’t know what came over me that night, but we hardly had any time left over for even whispered conversation. In the morning when they switched on the light the girls made some delicate jokes about the cushion, but they didn’t particularly savour what had happened in the night. I always consider myself a somewhat weak person; not endowed with natural gifts, frequently drunk and unequal to life’s big challenges. Usually hopeless in a crisis, I am what in nature would be called ‘dead-wood’. The medical term ‘satyriasis’ has no relevance to me, yet I had just deserted a much-desired wife. And what have I got in her place?—you must be wondering. Here was a completely strange woman, with no particular interest in me, occupied in physical work in the open air, trying to persuade me, an indoor softie, not to overdo it—I had to look after my health. But I just went on and on, completely oblivious of my wife, and of the impression others would have of me. The following day I felt fine. The film people ran me to earth in the market, trading wine in quantity—a young Azerbaijani stallholder had gone to lunch and left me in charge. My Cossack was a simple girl and very ordinary. If her fate after the war had allowed it, she would have become a good housewife, careful and thrifty. It’s possible that she was the kind of person who grabs and bites, but this would have been the result of what had happened to her in adult life, and not from being spoilt as a child. It was long ago, and now I cannot remember either her name or her face; but I do not regret this episode. Much more shameful is to recall how I used to seek adventures: with any woman, somewhere, in the small hours of the night, standing under a window, passing through a lobby—how many days and nights did I waste, all for nothing! How many absurd situations, wet feet and murdered hours! Dialling a wrong number, I was secretly glad that I had not brought shame on myself. We make many stupid mistakes out of curiosity, excusing ourselves with the thieves’ proverb: ‘God will see, but He will look after you’. I think that a romantic adventure is necessary from time to time, but in my case they happened infrequently, and could never be arranged in a dignified way. Later my Cossack girl once again found me in the street and took me back to her place, although I did mutter something about not feeling very well. I

Part 3

177

noticed that she had succeeded in providing herself with a screen. But it was surplus to requirement—I didn’t compromise the health of either of us that night… Returning to Moscow I joined the Regional Theatre for the Younger Audience. At the meeting of the All Russia Theatre Society they noted me down as an experienced actor; but I didn’t get roles and I didn’t even ask for them. I felt myself to be a stranger in this collective—and among people in general. My career was not turning out well. On the little terrace on which I slept in the summer a portrait of Stalin was hanging, on which was written: ‘To the Tsar, glorified by all, but sinking in a mass of evil. Answer us, you lunatic, explain why have you have trampled on the good and the strong?’ Sometimes I would go out into the town for a walk with my son, and wherever I went I would feel sick looking at everything around me: the monument to Yuri Dolgoruki was put there with the clear intention of obscuring the single statue of Lenin; they put up one for Gogol, but I feel like spitting—not at Gogol, but because they have made him look like Chapaev. My son has already learned something and pulls at my arm: ‘Papa, let’s go and look at the bandit Djugashvili.’ It’s nasty. I go for a drink. Drunk, I come along to take Slava away from the kindergarten; but they don’t give him back to me. A scandal is brewing. ‘You Stalin gang! Give the boy back…’ One of the parents helps to grab my arms… Later mama goes to her manager and asks her not to raise the issue: ‘He is unwell…’ At home, as before, warfare between my mother and my wife has not abated. True, there is a certain consolation: a young domestic help, Nina, looks at me in a friendly way and with definite sympathy. She rushes to embrace Vartan, Eda’s nephew, but that doesn’t mean anything. Thoughts come into my head: what if I were to marry Nina, does it matter that she is a simple girl, brought up in the country? She is soft and modest, and she possesses an inner intelligence. As a rule, such qualities are not in the nature of a simple Russian. There’s a ten-year difference in our ages, but that’s entirely acceptable. But there is one problem—with my soul and with every cell in my body I am bound to Eda; although she looks at me these days with something less than adoration… Then mother, who suspected everyone of treachery and managed to notice things that did not exist, drove Nina out. This happened late at night, and it was an ugly scene. Afterwards someone told me that Nina had said: ‘If it were not for Vladimir Nikolaevich, I would never forgive her for this.’ I used to read books to her; we went through almost all of Gogol together. It was cold in our house without her.

Part 3

178

Later Eda herself left the house and returned to her father. I followed her, and spent a short time at their home. One day, in my presence, Eda’s elder sister expressed surprise that it was possible for anyone to live with me. It ended by my seizing her by the hair, and they were only just able to tear me away. I came to my senses outside in the frost; I sat down in the porch, and thought: why is my wife not sitting next to me? She has been false to me many times, but this betrayal has wounded me more severely: why didn’t she stand up for me and stop her sister, when she spoke so vilely? Even if I was wrong, she is my wife—and not only in bed; there has to be some kind of understanding, compassion, or at least a wish to understand, to get things out into the open… I asked Zamkov to meet her on my behalf. Eda said something to him about a cross that she bore, and that her papa had a bad heart (until that day he had been perfectly healthy). But she didn’t call to see me, she didn’t even write two lines to me… Again I tried to show that I was concerned for her, I phoned her at work, waited for her at street corners… In the New Year of fifty-six, we agreed to meet at a place in Mozhaiskoe Shosse. So that we might be together that night, I had persuaded mother to go to my sister’s. But Eda came along with some friends she had met at a holiday resort. In the company of her affectionate and intelligent companions Eda seemed uncomfortable and lonely. Someone proposed a toast: ‘To that genius Shostakovich, who also lives in Mozhaiskoe Shosse!’ Then we sang in chorus: My heart is waiting, But why does she not come – Eternal love Is what I cannot do without… For some reason I said something about Bukharin. Lyonya, an engineer, calmly led me into the kitchen, then laid into me: ‘You are an absolute idiot…’ Having gone back, I wanted to sing ‘Taganka’, but they stopped me. Eda was upset by my behaviour. I quietly went into the hall, put on my overcoat and left. I sat for half an hour beside the main road, where the genius composer lived; then I hailed a cab and went home. In vain I had sent mother packing—I had not succeeded in making myself worthy of the night’s opportunity. Later, Eda admitted that among the guests was Yuri Poliakov from Ples, and that he was in love with her.

Part 3

179

75. RUMOURS To start with there were just whisperings about Khrushchev’s report to the Twentieth Party Congress, but later things were said aloud—at home, in the metro, on the streets. Then they began to read out the text in open party sessions, and improvised meetings took place. Sometimes one could even see foreign journalists standing beside groups of Moscow citizens and writing notes. I made some long speeches in front of my theatrical colleagues; Party organiser Khrustalevskaya tried to interrupt me but they told her to shut up. Angrily she said: ‘You don’t understand—we have still got children to bring up, why should we encourage all this bloodletting? We should learn from the Chinese: they have more sensible ideas, more class awareness, they understand our tragedy better than we do ourselves.’ The Party activists took their vengeance on me by not letting me know when the text of the report would be read out to us; so I did not hear it, although in Moscow, perhaps, it was difficult to find anybody who was not galvanised by this shift in policy. They say that in military academies angry remarks were shouted out by students, who ostentatiously got up and left their meetings. We knew an elderly Jew, who, in the course of his duties distributing tickets, found himself in a club where the report was the subject of ferocious discussion. He caught some of what was being said, and after looking around apprehensively, quietly left the hall. He thought that it was not going to end well. About this time Papa paid me a call. I had somebody staying with me, Jean Neveciel, a correspondent of France Soir who was of Russian extraction. Father did not understand that he was not ‘one of us’ and for a long time, like a bull ready to charge, listened to what we were saying; then he very distinctly remarked: ‘I don’t think that, as a result of these revelations, an extra half-kilo of butter is suddenly going to appear on a worker’s table.’ Later there was an international festival, and among the crowds on the streets scurried ‘spies and saboteurs’; but I didn’t see anything of that since I had left for Frunze. Even the events concerning Pasternak passed me by. 76. THE AMERICAN EXHIBITION I returned to Moscow in 1959. In the summer I succeeded in visiting the American Exhibition, and spent the whole day there. I drank Pepsi-Cola and copied down some aphorisms from the stands:

180

Part 3

‘I don’t consider one person greater or less than another—any person, whom they count as less, in my time and in my place, is equal to any other.’ Whitman. ‘To write well—that means to live in solitude. Writers’ organisations weaken the solitude of the author; I doubt that they will improve his creativity, because only he himself is responsible for what he writes. If he is a good writer, he must every day remain face to face with himself in solitude.’ Hemingway. ‘Such is the unconquerable nature of truth: everything she demands is to be freely revealed.’ Paine (?) ‘Trust cannot be created by necessity. You cannot force a person to believe.’ I copied down a lot more, and afterwards transferred them to my diary; question marks meant that that until then I didn’t know who these authors were. Some people told me they didn’t like Pepsi-Cola, but in my case this beverage helped me to stay on my feet all day and I just went on walking, looking, listening; only the fashions I didn’t bother with, they were just not for me. In the pavilion ‘Humankind’ a guide was addressing the crowd: ‘Citizens, don’t push, why are you trying to get in front of each other; it would be better to try and overtake America!’ ‘How is it that you speak Russian so well?’ someone asked. ‘My papa and mama were married in Kiev, and my grandfather was born in the town that used to be called Saint Petersburg… Apart from Marx, you know, there is another philosopher called Weber (?) It is not monopolies that threaten humankind, but dogmatism and religious fanaticism, and the growth of bureaucracy—not class struggle. The ability to compromise is more important than confrontation—compromise is the basis of relations between man and wife, political power and opposition, trade unions and factory owners, individuality and society… Somebody, trying to provoke the guide, asks: ‘How much do they pay you?’ ‘Eighteen dollars a day.’ ‘Why so little for such hard work?’ ‘Eighteen dollars—it’s not so little, it’s good money; my hotel, transport and food are paid for separately; and you can’t say the work is all that hard, I’m just churning out words. I consider myself lucky—look, I’ve never been to your country before.’ The guide did not understand what a Soviet person means by this kind of ‘hard work’—it takes years to train saboteurs like that… He answers every question in such a spirited way and with such cheerfulness—about Communists, about Swiss mountains, he mentioned comrade Stalin (ah, how he

Part 3

181

pronounced that name!), argued the case for freedom of information, freedom of choice and all the different possibilities for earning your living. In another pavilion a cheerful red-cheeked American was standing, apparently a Russian language teacher, but he spoke with a strong accent and with difficulty came out with: ‘I earn 450 dollars a month, I like my work, when I get married my wife will also work if she wants to…’ ‘Why do they victimise Communists in your country?’ ‘Because they are spies. In America there are shops with Communist literature, and there is a demand for it. I don’t like Communists because in France, for instance, they were loyal to Hitler, and only in forty one, when Moscow ordered it, did they begin the struggle against Fascism.’ It especially shocked Moskvichi that Americans abused their own leaders without any embarrassment: ‘Yes, you’re right, Eisenhower has done a lot of stupid things.’ Some complaining voices were heard at the exhibition: ‘There’s a lot of text and photographs, but not many exhibits. Moscow doesn’t believe in words—we make a lot of photomontages ourselves—it’s an easy way of pulling the wool over your eyes…’ Not many of our citizens knew that the Americans were prepared to feed visitors free of charge, but our authorities would not tolerate such a provocation. It was as difficult to make your way through the crowds to see the computers and books as it was to see the fashions. Visitors were surprised to learn that there were seven or eight American satellites in orbit, whereas our newspapers had only told us about Soviet ones. The exhibition immediately and finally convinced me that, in global competition, the Americans would, without fail, defeat us. 77. TWO MORE YEARS They went by dully and insignificantly. I lived in Frunze—and of course things did happen, there were some amusing incidents, but I fear that now, on the eve of the Lenin jubilee, I cannot write about all of them. Rumours went around persistently that the days of our freedom were numbered (they had in mind people like myself, not necessarily one hundred percent loyal to the system), it followed that I had to concentrate on the most important things in life. I have written about my acquaintance with Shepilov; and as far as I know, my essay ‘Even Shepilov is aligned with them’ has been published in the west. During the first days of 1960 Eda took the ‘final’ decision to divorce me and marry someone else. I was devastated and for a whole year could not look at another woman. I threw all those ‘happy’ photographs on the fire—I

Part 3

182

had probably not expressed much interest in them, and kept them mostly for one of my friends, a connoisseur of arcane sex. I did not even go to Pasternak’s funeral, although I was in Moscow at the time. And for me political, cultural and most other aspects of life lost their charm. But after a year I did make a few sorties, and these efforts to keep going resulted in my life becoming a little easier. Otherwise1962 did not bring anything new, if you don’t count the awakening interest in me on the part of the ‘organs’—the result of my correspondence with Repnikov and my meetings with a friend of his from the camps, ‘the American, Gary.’ Meetings, however, that were not all that frequent. 78. MY LITTLE WHITE PIGEON On the tenth of February in the Yermolovsky Theatre there was a public preview of ‘Games without Rules’, and, since I had no one else to go with me, I invited mama. We were late and had to stand; I looked at her and suddenly thought—how she has aged, and I hadn’t noticed… She had already been getting her pension for a year, and her stomach was troubling her from time to time; so I sent her off to the polyclinic: ‘Do me a favour and get yourself cured, I won’t be able to survive without you; your pension is my only hope.’ At the polyclinic they prescribed hot water bottles and snake poison. Now she spends the evenings in front of the television, clutching a hot water bottle. Her dog Benka for some reason growls if she decides to stroke him. Even when he is asleep he knows who’s touching him—whether it’s Mama or me. I used to say: ‘He loves the person who beats him most.’ At Boris Runge’s I heard a record of some songs by Okudzhava. We sat down, had some drinks, and savoured her music. They were touching lyrics; but one of them was quite special, and I immediately memorised both the melody and the text. I couldn’t believe that this was about a live person—at least nothing was said about death. Mama, my little white pigeon… I felt a tightening in my chest. More sonorous than the bee gardens at midday Are the voices from childhood, Your hands, your songs, Your immortal eyes…

Part 3

183

Immortal! It was as though I had been struck. This was the truth— mama’s eyes, they were immortal… Not long ago we had a row and I shouted: ‘What’s your money to me? You have crippled my life! You can disappear with your money!’ She said quietly: ‘Be patient… It won’t be long now…’ My heart was wrung. Her loneliness was more terrible than my own—no vodka, no theatre; and, which was worse, no hope for anything in the future… A lonely man—he’s an oddity, an anachronism these days. There has been so much slaughter; even the most ruinous survivor will find a female companion, while for a woman… She might say that she accepts or even wants to be on her own, but in her soul she is waiting, hoping… War has taken away twenty million men (and if there had been ten more Eda would not have thrown me out—I thought in a bitter moment). I listened to the song and sobbed—I don’t know if it was drunken hysteria, or a genuine aesthetic reaction; afterwards Boris put me into a taxi, redeyed, after shoving an expensive but entirely unwanted book into my hands—‘For Lady Alekseevna’. I arrived home and threw myself down on my knees in front of my mother: ‘Mama, don’t die!’ Someone rang the doorbell. Mother began to creep downstairs to open it, I decided to get there first, flew down the stairs—and hurt myself. She dragged me, drunk, back up again… In the morning I telephoned father: ‘My mama is going to die soon…’ 79. FROM MY DIARY 16/4/62. Up to now my shoulder has been hurting—I’ve been howling all the time. And mother surely can’t go on like this forever. She should not have to put up with it… I see her as a little girl. What was she dreaming about, what was she expecting from life?… Nobody else loved me so much, yet to nobody else was I more hurtful. A week ago I said: ‘We have got to go our separate ways!’ Tears ran down her grey haggard cheeks. There was nobody to defend her. I didn’t even try to find the right words—I went up to her and silently stroked her hair. Poor mama, she never achieved anything in her whole life… I read to her ‘A Farewell to Arms!’ I stay with her. Mama, try this last time to escape from your illness—I won’t hurt you anymore. Eda said: ‘We won’t leave you’.

184

Part 3

Now she has fallen into a doze. She is ashamed to groan in front of me. But then in the night I do hear her groaning. I go to her, and sit on the bed. ‘Go away…’ ‘You go to sleep and I will go away.’ ‘You go away, I will go to sleep.’ I went away, she didn’t moan anymore. Later that night, after a bottle of wine: ‘My own dearest mother, you young princess, look over there—father is coming to see you.’ (No, father did not come here just to look at my dear mother). Mama, my little white dove, stay alive, my dear one!… Again, grief, and the unbearable feeling of loss—as in ‘Rotshild’s Violin’… Let a miracle happen! My little white pigeon… I cannot… now she is smothered by her tears. My own tears are those of a drunk, weak, untalented person. She was also untalented. But not in her ability to love. How she loved me, and father as well… And we trampled on her. I still wanted a little girl, a daughter, but this little girl was living right next to me—most beautiful, most sacred… She had faith in Stalin, followed him—greeted him! She loved Soviet power—I will be more attentive to her. But with what can you treat someone who is ill from a cancerous tumour? You could not be more ill than you are now, my dearest one. What kind of humanism is this—that allows a person to die in such suffering? Your immortal eyes… With all your neuroses—you are the very flesh and bones of your people. You are the blessed one who has given me life. I kiss your soft wrinkled cheeks, my sweet little girl, my white dove… You are mine, you are with me, you are part of me… My tears, my oaths—what are they worth, the price of a bottle of vodka, two roubles 80 kopeks?… No, her pain is always with me—when I am asleep, when I wake up, when I look at the walls, and grieve, and pray to an unfamiliar God… I kiss you. I love you. Always. Forever… I am with you: I love you. I have only just realised this, but now this is forever. I don’t want you to suffer. It would be better to get your operation over and done with… I don’t need anything, only that you do not suffer, I want nothing more… You never knew love or warmth—but this is what I cannot give you; now it’s too late!… 80. A DEATH AND A FUNERAL I knew there was no hope. At the polyclinic they ordered samples to be collected and for hot water bottles to be laid on the affected area. Poor medical workers—how many cases do they have to treat every day, what a statistic to have to compile!… Eda came and felt in her ex-mother-in-law’s body a huge tumour. I myself ran to the polyclinic—talked, begged: my

Part 3

185

mother is not just ill, she is dying! They checked up on who I was, reclassified her case from being merely a long-term investigation, and called the emergency service. But getting a seriously ill person into hospital was not so easy. The doctor from the polyclinic gave instructions about Mother on the basis that she was simulating the symptoms of appendicitis—they did not accept cancer patients. (Up to that time, they would allocate a ward in the ‘Kremlin hospital’ for any indisposition of father’s). When palpated the cancerous tumour was not painful, but Mama should have screamed out. This comedy was repeated twice—at home, then later in the emergency ward. They brought her coat, dress and shoes out to me. I took the bundle home—held it like a child, and wept. These clothes were not brought to me for listing… Throughout her life Mama had succeeded in copying out everything that Marx and Engels had written, and had accumulated a mountain of thick exercise books. I collected them all up and, together with the original works, carried them out to the waste-paper bins. So it’s just for this that a whole life is sacrificed!… She lived for another month. She was optimistic, she believed that they would cure her, and was consoled by the warmth of my love. They prepared her for the operation—injections, transfusions. I ran around getting juices, medicines. I even took her some special tree fungus; and I went to see Grandfather in Taininka, but the hospital categorically refused the help of a quack. Because of the disease, and perhaps with the desire of improving her health, she gave up smoking—five packs of ‘Chaika’ lay on her bedside table, untouched. (I often reproached her, saying the only reason that I took up smoking was that papirosy were always scattered about the house. And now, thirteen years after her death, if I haven’t got enough money, I have to beg a cigarette from my neighbour). One day I called in at the hospital and found Aunt Zina at mother’s bedside. The endless divorces of her son had brought her first to Riga Street, and then to somewhere in the Babushkin district. Later she decided to return to Sokol (thirty years ago she and Slavka spent six months with us). ‘Volodia, you won’t object if we register Aunt Zina?’ asked Mother. I did object. ‘But she will look after me…’ ‘If she is coming to look after you, she will not need a propiska.’ ‘Yes, but at any moment you might want to throw me out!’ Aunt Zina declared. ‘And you don’t want me ever to be able throw anybody out of the house?’ The skirmish ended by my getting up, slamming the door and leaving. In the corridor I could still hear mother’s voice: ‘Volodia, Volodia!’ but I did not return.

186

Part 3

The following day I went back just to say: ‘Register who you like, even if it’s the entire village of Nikolaevka.’ She had inhaled some oxygen and with sign language asked me to give her an injection. One half of her face was crimson-red, the other greenyyellow. Aunt Zina shouted into her ear: ‘Volodia has come!’ ‘Where is he?’ ‘Here he is!’ ‘Yes, I can see…’ She could hardly see anything; she was suffering from blood poisoning. The agony went on for two whole days, and every now and again she would cry out: ‘Why all this?’ To whom was she addressing this question—to a Komsomol girl or to a Party organisation…? Her last words were: ‘Volodienko, I am dying… They have injected me everywhere, there’s nothing left of me that’s alive… Soon there’ll just be peace and quiet…’ Peace and quiet! She never used to talk like that. We had even gone to the American Exhibition together, but Mama wrote nothing—and school children were forbidden to say anything about it. Sitting at her bedside, I repeated: ‘Yes, Mama, peace and quiet—you can look forward to peace and quiet, and in the past there was peace and quiet, and all around you there is peace and quiet…’ Mother lost consciousness. I wept a little; and then drank some wine from a bottle standing in her bedside cupboard, took a thermos, some fruit and cigarettes—the same five packs—and went home. Eda was waiting for me, and I buried myself in her arms. In the morning I phoned Larisa; she said: ‘Be brave, Volodia—she has died. We left half an hour after you, and when I arrived home they phoned me…’ With an idiotic grin I turned to Eda: ‘Everything is in order—Pana has breathed her last…’ Eda did not go to work; we went into the park, and sat next to some kind of grotto. I drank a quantity of wine. Later came the funeral. Doleful attendants passed to and fro arranging wreaths and looking down at their hands. At the crematorium, in spite of notices that ‘no payment is levied’, an unpleasant-looking person with a disfigured jaw was asking for money for the cleaners. I gave ten roubles, he asked for more: ‘There are three of us.’ I turned away.

Part 3

187

Many people gave money, as much as they were asked for—it must have seemed as though a very important person had died. Already during the first days of mama’s final illness, when there was a row going on as usual among family members, I let it be known that I would not invite them to a funeral meal (at that time I still could not imagine that her illness was fatal, and thought she was pretending, in order to ‘exert influence’ on me). And now there really was to be a wake, to which family members would of course be coming, even father. They were all bowled over by him—what fearlessness, what strength of spirit—after the twenty second Party Congress he had held forth on Stalin, recalling, with deference, the ‘father and teacher’. ‘You could tell the truth to Stalin, it was possible! Usually you would shit in your pants—but then there would be harmony!’ Nobody was interested in my deceased mother. They sympathised with my grief out of politeness—it was pre-ordained, he will live through it… Yurka Yagovkin arrived, a member of my wife’s family. Even a neighbour from the flat beneath ours, a Caucasian, Nuril, felt obliged attend for some reason. Not a bad person; probably in the Caucasus the whole street would join in… Boria Runge, whom mother helped so much during his student years, did not come, nor did Shepilov—he is also a person who would have cancelled a debt from somebody who had supported him at a difficult moment. Well, yes, perhaps it was for the best that they were not there—Boria is an artist; in a drunken state he would probably have begun to use a lot of vulgar slang, which people might have thought terribly amusing. As for Shepilov, they could just as well have been looking at the United Nations Organisation… I drank a few glasses, and couldn’t help recalling how mother had answered me on that occasion: ‘However much you want to throw me on the rubbish heap, my son…’ But neither vodka, nor Eda granted me oblivion… Afterwards Larisa came for her clothes—‘only for Zina and Grisha’—and quietly got hold of the astrakhan collar (I was in such a state that I would not have noticed anything, even if they had moved all the furniture out of the house; but our neighbour Kira did notice, and told me about it in a whisper). Certainly the collar was lost; but it was of no great significance—mother left me well provided for. They did not pay any life insurance because Mother died a natural death, but on the other hand it emerged that she had not spent a single kopek from father’s remittances to her; she had set the figures down in an account book, and she bequeathed it all to me. Although I still had to prove, exhaustively, that I was her son, and not a lover or a lodger. Aunt Zina, even though she succeeded in obtaining residential registration with me, showed complete indifference to the clothes—she sent every-

188

Part 3

thing to poor Grisha—he was the one who had consorted both with the Whites and the Reds. On the day following the funeral the real Stalinist (now back to being a Leninist) made a second appearance and asked for evidence of death. He and mama were not divorced; and so, until now, he was unable to give his family name to his youngest son. The elder son of that union was born when his father was at a high point in his career, and he was able to get around the law in this regard; but now permission was refused for the younger one. The day before, father had hesitated to ask for this piece of paper, although it was clear that that was the only reason for his coming to the funeral. Divorce was something he was mortally afraid of—in case he was accused of amoral behaviour; but now the knot was undone, to general satisfaction… I don’t remember now how many thousands of roubles mother left me. When I showed the paperwork to Eda she was scared: ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t seen this! Now you will think that I am just coming back for the money.’ She did not leave me alone for a minute and even said: ‘I wouldn’t have divorced you for any other reason, if I knew that Pana Alekseevna was going to die. I thought that she would live to be eighty—she was so severe, so stubborn. I taunted her: now she did not know who she was—lover or lodger or mother of my son. She said that to get divorced was not difficult; but I said that second time round I would not marry a whore. She only smiled: ‘Perhaps you would like me to go away again?’ I surrendered. ‘You are like your mother’, Eda said. ‘Like dear Panochka… (All the little girls at school called her that, and so did Eda). And now Eda was already cleaning the windows and dreaming of buying new furniture. While she was washing me in the bath—bathing together was wonderfully satisfying as usual—her father, Lev Karpych, arrived unexpectedly, and insisted on taking her away to her weeping ‘lawful’ husband. Afterwards a telegram: ‘Urgent—get here by plane’. The theatre company I was working with had gone out on tour; they had not taken me because I was restricted to part-time work. But now somebody was suffering from the effects of a heavy bout of drinking and I had to fill the breach. I got on a plane. When I returned—her friends had persuaded Eda to change her mind: ‘look, he’s never going to forgive you for these two years you’ve been with someone else.’ Who knows—perhaps we ourselves should have come to a decision without advisors. All her life she was angry about something—you are a clown, you are always acting up in public, rowdily talking in the

Part 3

189

trolleybus, singing, kissing: we are not eighteen years old anymore. But during those—last—few days she had forgiven me for everything… And now I was left to myself—without a mother, without a wife. I squandered money on drink; and I began selling all kinds of things, books and furniture for next to nothing, although my pockets were stuffed with cash. By a stroke of fate a student of nuclear physics, Zuyanov, appeared, looking for accommodation, and he might have rented a room from me, and settled in with his wife; until one day his father arrived, a colonel, who said: ‘If you don’t get out of here then neither I nor Galka’s father will give you any material help. This house is under observation.’ (This was at the height of Khrushchev’s liberalising campaign). The student left. But then a miracle happened—the door opened and in stepped grandmother Fedosia Petrovna. I never expected to see her again, she was over eighty years old (today she is ninety four). She slowly went up to my bed, saw a young girl next to me (a student of the circus arts) and asked: ‘And who is this?’ ‘She is a girl…’ I answered awkwardly. Grandmother Fenya was silent, as though deep in thought (she had been a widow since she was twenty-four); evidently she suddenly remembered something, and loudly spat out: ‘Pah!’ Then she began to arrange the large items of luggage she had brought with her and unpack the bundles—apart from anything else there were at least ten flat irons in her belongings. I began to feel more cheerful—Grandmother began to cook some porridge, and talk about herself, her family and neighbours and friends, about God and Jesus Christ—what He wills is bound to happen—and about biblical heroes and her journey to Palestine in 1911. 81. IVAN DENISOVICH A story was published in the newspaper Novy Mir. I read it, I was completely riveted. Such rich, densely constructed prose I had not come across before; but I thought: this was not so much the product of an outstanding talent as of vivid, lived-through experience and an intimate knowledge of the material he was writing about. And when the name Solzhenitsyn again caught my eye, but not expecting another miracle, I read from the beginning the section ‘People, Years, Life’ in the next issue; and then became absorbed in the story ‘Matrenin Court’. By the time I had read the last line, I realised that a person had entered the field of literature who was not hungry for glory as such, but was at least expecting some reaction from people morally challenged by the horror of what they had read, expecting some demand for change.

190

Part 3

I wrote a letter to the author, full of praise and inkblots. I expressed the conviction that the character Ignatich was himself the author; and, since I was living alone in two rooms (grandmother was not yet living there), wondered whether Ignatich, a writer in the classic padded jacket of the camps, might come and live in one of them? After several months I received a reply (by that time I had already forgotten about the letter). Solzhenitsyn thanked me for my compliments and expressed a wish to become acquainted with me. I was a little apprehensive—I couldn’t really believe that I would see him, speak with him. I replied straight away, swearing that I was always levelheaded towards celebrities, and that I saw in him just the kind of person whom I needed for moral support and to help me find some sense in life. Our meeting took place in the Central Telegraph Office. A well-built, provincially dressed man approached me, not especially prepossessing. Volodia Gershuni, who was with him in one of the camps, later told me: ‘Isaich certainly does not belong in the class of geniuses, there are many men who are cleverer than him’. I suggest that in order to take a look at these cleverer people, to write about them, one should oneself remain in the shadows—and not forcefully advance one’s opinions or even attract attention to them. I thought that I would see a sick, tortured, really old man; but on the contrary, standing in front of me was a captain of the second rank—cheerful, young-looking; you would never guess that he had done time in prison. He might have been an army captain in the artillery. ‘So this is what she is like— the conscience of Russia’ I thought, taking stock of his appearance. We went to Sokol. His step was light, jaunty. On catching sight of grandmother, evidently, he rejected any idea of staying in the flat with me. ‘I can see I am bothering you.’ ‘The word bother has different meanings’, I objected. His eyes blazed up. (‘Don’t let your eyes show anger in front of a friend…’) During the following two years I saw him often; I wanted to write a lot down, but friends discouraged me from doing so, warning me that I would be drawing too much undesirable attention to him. I felt extremely indebted to him for all our discussions and was not able to be entirely silent about our acquaintance, but I was determined not to say anything specific about our conversations. One day perhaps… I only really began writing after mama’s death. My first production ‘Marriage and the Family under Communism’ was a lampoon. Then came a crazily bombastic piece ‘Letter to Lenin’ that fell into the hands of the KGB. Having got to know Solzhenitsyn I realised that I was not unique in suffering the pangs of loneliness, and neither was I alone as a writer. I learned the meaning of samizdat: ‘Erica is taking four copies. That’s all. It’s enough.’ (I

Part 3

191

knew a Kolya Glazkov a long time ago, and he was distributing his own compositions by samizdat; but they were not approved of by his peers.) I very much regret that I wasn’t able to keep a copy of my ‘Report’ (the last one was seized when Grigorenko’s flat was searched on 7 May 1969). In its time ‘Report’ caused a stir. It was addressed to the chairman of the KGB. People said that Kantov—interrogator of Grigorenko and Daniel—had problems with it: the Far Eastern censors of mail considered that it was an authentic official document that had somehow been leaked. Later, while the last search of Grigorenko’s flat was going on, the interrogators and witnesses were heard whispering: ‘It’s Kantov. They don’t always tell us about top secret matters.’ They had not taken note of two facts: firstly, that the date of my ‘Report’ was the first of April 1966, and secondly, that the high-ranking KGB officer, Semichastny, was named without initials—what kind of person was Kantov that he could allow himself to be so disrespectful! (I was simply too lazy to find out how to name this comrade properly). I only got down to writing my own material when there was nothing of anybody else’s to be printed. Items that came through my hands included ‘The New Class’ by Djilas, many chapters of ‘The Steep Route’ by E. Ginsburg, a work by V. L. Te’ush about ‘Ivan Denisovich’ and many things by Solzhenitsyn; and I reprinted several times ‘Brodsky’s Trial’ compiled by F. Vigdorova. At Vigdorova’s funeral I requested armbands for the mourners so we could stand together as an honour guard. But there was a challenge: ‘And where do you come from?’—‘I am her publisher.’ They handed out armbands. Now the authorities had got to know about my ‘Report’ I knew I was going to suffer. A. Kuznetsov assured me that samizdat is an almost permitted activity these days, but it’s still a game of cat and mouse; so ‘Animal Farm’ or ‘1984’ won’t circulate in samizdat… I won’t take it upon myself to judge why they won’t; but I know a member of the Union of Writers who hires a typewriter—so the authorities would be ‘confiscating their own property’. But they already frighten us to the extent of confiscating everything they can lay their hands on, so the ‘game’ turns out to be far from amusing. The situation can hardly be more bizarre, when a responsible chekist will hide samizdat publications in his possession from his son, while the son hides from his dear papa what he’s managed to get hold of. But samizdat is the natural reaction when everyone—and that includes those who govern us as well as extreme reactionaries and sincere conformists—are deprived of the freedom to use words as they please. Colleagues commented on my activities: ‘He is going on with his copying far too openly’. And about Gershuni those same people were saying: ‘He is rushing about and being far too provocative towards the authorities’. But

192

Part 3

until ‘Report’ had fallen into the hands of the KGB, these opinions didn’t trouble me. The chekist Skobelev was going on about ‘some kind of rubbish’ in his possession; he didn’t know where it had been obtained—but I certainly did. I had sent it by post to Ernst Makhnovetsky (for a long time I had been giving out a false return address, and as a rule he avoided sending his correspondence from Moscow; but all these little deceits did not save him). Makhnovetsky did not receive what I had sent him, instead it landed on Skobelev’s desk. On 26 June 1966 I was approaching my house carrying an umbrella and a copy of Novy Mir, which included Kataev’s last story. At the gate stood a ‘raven’ with barred windows. Two militiamen and two nurses amiably informed me: ‘Vladimir Nikolaevich, we want to take you to see Yenushevsky…’ They only took me as far as the militia station in the raven, there they transferred me to a psychiatric ambulance, marked with red crosses—the medical orderlies knew their duties just as well as the militiamen; but any worker can fall ill, and medical treatment for us is free… This particular specialist hospital is located in Novoslobodskaya Street, No.5 Institute Way. Yenushevsky wasn’t there, but other doctors performed his role well enough. When I tried to appeal to their honour and conscience— ‘You have made your Hippocratic oath!’—just one beautiful woman of Semitic appearance winced. But even this little victory buoyed me up, and I began to say that a medical secret has now come to be understood: if it comes into a journalist’s head to write a piece about Tarsis, it doesn’t mean that a hospital is obliged to helpfully grant him a diagnosis of epilepsy—shame on you, comrades, shame on you… The woman, sitting downcast, glanced sadly at the man sitting opposite her—no doubt this theme came up in their private conversation. Without questioning me about things actually seen or heard, they sent me to the 15th ‘Academic’ department of a hospital named Kashchenko. This was headed by the hospital party organiser Felix Yenokhovich Vartanian. Back at home they carried out a search and took an album of photographs with some rude messages written on them. They returned the album several days later (and now the same album—only containing family snaps—has been seized again, and has been kept for five years already; I don’t know what they have found—surely not anti-Soviet or secret material). I was in Kashchenko during July, August, and September—but I am not going to write about this period. I will only say that by the time I was released I had been thoroughly deafened, drugged and crushed.

Part 3

193

82. WORKING DAYS When I found myself at the Tenevoi Theatre, its founder, Svobodina, an aged lady from the Peoples’ Commission for education, was terminally ill, and the enterprising director Vladimir Naumovich Tikhvinsky was running the organisation. He, together with Mark Aizenshtadt, had written some small fables and scenes for the actor Raikin. Mark was a modest, restrained, very literate and self-absorbed person. If it were not for Tikhvinsky he would not have been able to advance himself. And evil tongues would have it that, without the writer Azov, Tikhvinsky himself would never have written a line. I asked Tikhvinsky for the role of ‘the author’ in the children’s television play ‘Malysh and Karlson’. Glancing at me expressively he said: ‘You know we have already invited Rostislav Yanovich Plyatt to take this role. We think he would be better.’ I couldn’t help but agree with this choice; however in the event the part did not go to Plyatt but to an energetic and hard-working Ilia Beider, who, unfortunately, was entirely lacking in stage charm. The unhappy Iliusha, a man with a large family, made every effort and tried very hard as always, but the children, even after the first few phrases, had already decided, in a friendly kind of way, that he was a spy, and everybody expected that he would stage some kind of crafty exit. In spite of my passivity during those years, I did read a lot of material over the radio, more than any actor at the Tenevoi could dream of. Once, during a film festival, I even denied myself the satisfaction of seeing ‘Westside Story’, because I had to read pieces about enthusiasts interested in new building construction and the daily routines of explosives experts. Of course I could have said that I was busy and that I was unable to perform. And the work was shared within a team. But these extra earnings were important to me, although communicating with the radio people was complicated as I did not have a telephone. Once I read some little-known anti-religious stories by Mark Twain—this was for Siberia, but they took note of the programme, and the editor congratulated me and said that it had been decided to repeat it on the main channel. Afterwards I accidentally discovered that somebody else called Nazvanov read the stories on the main channel. I phoned the director Kriachko for an explanation: he got in a rage at my ‘effrontery’: ‘We decide these things, who is going to do broadcasts. We have given you other material for these particular times, and if you’re patient we’ll give you something else to do that’s more to your liking.’ I said that I didn’t want to cross swords with Nazvanov, that I was sure he was the better reader; but in what way was Siberia inferior to Moscow? (Of course inferior—there were far fewer people in charge). They stopped asking me to do broadcasts, although they always responded politely to my calls: ‘Please phone, just go on phoning us.’ One of my fellow-students did just

194

Part 3

that—having a telephone at home was useful. If you knock on a door often enough you hope it will eventually open. That’s how I lost some good income—sometimes I had been making nearly a hundred roubles a month—with only two or three visits to the studio. We were long out of the habit of applying moral criteria; nobody now would refuse a role on moral grounds, in the way Yavorskaya had declined to take part in the ant-Semitic play ‘Smugglers’. Now it was just a question of how many hours and how much they would pay. It was not surprising that my protest had so provoked the director. Meanwhile in the theatre they decided to hold an open discussion on ways and means for easing me out of my position. Breider came out with: ‘When we studied together everyone expected that Gusarov would be another Khmeliov, but something has happened to him since then…’ Later an actress, Novikova, began talking about my becoming ‘extinct’. Tikhvinsky said the reality of the theatre did not suit me—I ought to have made up my own mind about that and resigned. A year later, after they had sacked Tikhvinsky himself from the theatre, we were chatting over a cognac in the bar of the All-Russia Theatre Association: ‘It was because of the phone calls from the ministry, you understand, that Klimova decided to get rid of you. I was against it… To get rid of me—that means that Klimova made the decision, but delegated its ‘creative presentation’ to the senior director. Several years later, after my ‘harsh treatment’ in the hospital I met Tikhvinsky by accident in the foyer of the ‘Cosmos’ cinema. ‘What is this Samizdat of yours? Who needs it, who is it going to?’ ‘And who needs your moralising stories?’ ‘The stories do have a purpose…’ ‘Samizdat also serves a purpose, only you get a fee for your stories, while we get imprisonment and the mad house!’ At which point our acquaintance ended. The Literaturni Theatre was my next place of work—under the aegis of the All-Russia Theatre Association. There was nothing literary about it; it was just that they did not put up much scenery—that was its only literary quality. A rich organisation had created the ensemble for shefsky work, which meant that we were available to meet the need for drama education in, perhaps, remote locations, as directed by the party hierarchy. But there was no intellectual basis for the selection of plays—all theatres are theatre; but, if you will forgive the pretentiousness, we did consider ourselves a ‘literary’ group.

Part 3

195

We acted without greasepaint, without costumes, one actor played several roles, and so on; nevertheless this was an ordinary touring theatre, only more limited—because it was on a grant from the Theatre Association. The whole troupe was in love with the one-legged director, Vladimir Vladimirovich Bortko, who came to us from the Gogol Theatre. He was an unpleasant person, but he put on some witty productions, full of rhythm. Being a son of one of the secretaries of the obkom, who perished in ’thirty seven, Bortko assiduously tried to succeed with the theme of ‘rehabilitating the recent past’, and even wanted somehow to stage Bulgakov’s novel ‘Escape’. On his own initiative he had put on ‘More Dangerous than the Enemy’ at the Gogol; the production was much worse than the one at the Leningradsky, although Vladimir Vladimirovich stole a lot from them without any twinge of conscience. On this occasion we had to entertain an audience in a distant region of Siberia, where if the plot doesn’t include a ‘love triangle’ there will be protests or worse. But there had to be a moral dimension: it would have been absurd and dangerous to present me, the ‘hero’, as simply in love with a married woman—without any kind of rationale. The parable had to reinforce the love of the heroine towards her husband; and this was to be signalled by the romantic glances, as it were, of an eternal wanderer, not satiated by the routine appearance of his lawful spouse. The theme of the play did not have a sharply defined denouement, and its development left the spectator with a wish for more. Meanwhile, at one of the best clubs in the district a group of youths not yet old enough for military service were assaulting two nice girls—cultural workers. This happened soon after a public debate ‘Marriage and the Family under Communism’ which the victims had so assiduously prepared for the benefit of the community. The girls were genuinely committed to bringing culture to the masses, they were teaching people to understand the beauty around them, to dance and even to think… In another small town the director of a club invited me to his house, and bringing out a vast quantity of drinks, asked me to… exorcise a spell, which was making his wife excessively jealous. She assured me that her jealousy was not the result of his having sex with their sixteen-year-old daughter. I understood that the director and his wife, having seen the play, had come to believe that I was indeed a magician (one can only doubt the cultural level of the ‘normal’ audience). I couldn’t disappoint them—otherwise, having learned that I was only able to be a sorcerer on the stage, they would consider themselves defrauded, and would go and make a complaint that they had been sent, not artists, but some kind of rogues. (On stage, the heroine sometimes represented the Princess, and sometimes Cinderella. This depended on the way I addressed her; my magic lay in my seeming to have two different

196

Part 3

kinds of eyes. The audience believed these were true stories, although the ideas behind them were much too theoretical). Father and schoolgirl daughter swore in front of me, the ‘magician’, that they were not in an incestuous relationship, but mother demanded that I should expose them and lead them back to clean living. Perhaps she was mentally ill (I came to that conclusion, not because I thought it impossible that father and daughter were co-habiting, but on the basis of what I observed, having listened to her line of reasoning). On that journey I learned about another family problem, when a husband went from his wife to an adolescent stepdaughter, while the mother had to make do with the role of housewife and onlooker. In the end the daughter gave birth, and they registered her as a single mother, although nobody was in any doubt as to who the father was. In the middle of May, after a long absence, we returned to the people’s capital, and they took the whole company off to 38 Petrovka Street (at that time representing all the militia departments of Russia). They questioned each of us separately about what conversations we had had, and afterwards took signed statements about non-divulgence. Then each of us, as far as we could, ‘did not divulge’. The director, Viktor Krasnoriadtsev, extremely apprehensive and sensitive to social rank, begged me, almost with tears in his eyes, to remove myself from Moscow once and for all. At the same time he suggested that I listen to him very attentively, bearing in mind the circumstances in which he was speaking. My drinking partner was the last to be called. He said they had interrogated him about a certain journalist (did you realise who he was?) Together with journalist A, I did write letters and send printed matter to the ‘American spy’ Repnikov. The organs were trying to get to the bottom of our satanic intentions. I had to leave the Literaturni Theatre. I was without work for more than two months; then I received a postcard from I. N. Rusinov and, as a consequence, travelled for a month with the Gaidamansky Puppet Theatre. Gorky’s baleful character Bessemionov was pure King Lear compared with Gaidamansky: such a disgusting rogue and miser I don’t think I have ever met. (Looking at my diary I can see almost nothing for this month, so I am just left with memories). My falling in with the Gaidamansky troupe was marked by my getting to know three ‘puppets’, who stole fifty roubles from the drawer of my writing table. I was rather taken by the cynicism with which these young girls described their adventures—they were so eager to broaden their experiences of life—but I’m not sure it was worth fifty roubles to me. Raya had worked as a hairdresser, Svetlana as a cook; while Tania never had a legal occupation and lived off her prosperous parents. But more recently they were gainfully occupied in a more disreputable activity. Their method was to take their client in a taxi and circle around until his craving was

Part 3

197

satisfied or the money ran out. They especially enjoyed describing those occasions when, having elicited an advance payment, they were able speed away in the cab before the befuddled client could climb aboard. After getting to know me, they went on to describe the kind of fool who fell for that kind of trick (I did not have to take off my trousers for this information, I simply fell asleep, drunk). At the beginning, I told the police about these swindles out of righteous anger, but it was clear that they were more interested in me than in the girls, so from then on I decided to stop worrying these protectors of social order. I did not experience erotic hunger myself because my ex-wife had not forgotten me; she was pleased that I was always at her service (although I did sometimes complain of tiredness and incapacity). And I still had other women—a typist and a Young Pioneer leader (who later on became a teacher of Marxism). The Young Pioneer leader was more modest than the typist, although she had on one occasion taken part in an exchange of partners; or, as Eda used to say, in a ‘cross pollination’. But it seems to me that even then she was doing this without any great enthusiasm; and now she is married and hardly drawn to such diversions. With Gaidamansky’s theatre I became acquainted with Kalmykia—a place of dust and drought; and there were lots of insects. In a small town the manageress of our hotel expressed satisfaction that she had succeeded in getting rid of her daughter’s nits: ‘Tomorrow she’s back at school!’ In the shop there were sweets, all stuck together, as well as cakes and slabs of Kalmyk tea. In the bookshop—lots of patriotic books such as ‘Say No to Death!’ and the notice: ‘Exercise books only issued for approved purposes’. At the library I asked for a copy of the ‘Literary Gazette’, but the assistant offered me ‘Soviet Culture’. I began to explain that these were not the same, but afterwards the thought occurred to me that she was right, I was wrong. Some very artificial-looking girls were sitting in the library with upto-date hair do’s and wearing narrow trousers; they were looking through two-year-old copies of ‘Screen’. On the first of January 1964 I was drunk, and they pulled me into the local militia post and robbed me. I begged them to give me back some of my things, my clothing at least; I thought I might get pneumonia. They gave me back my jacket and some trousers, but these were not mine, and they were old. They also returned my purse, but it was empty, and my fountain pen had been exchanged for an inferior one. But I had to give some credit for police generosity—they would not have left a street robber with anything. In Rostov oblast, during a snowstorm, we stopped at a village and managed to find a restaurant where we were able to get something to eat. The puppeteers were terminally fed up, and I found it almost impossible to put up any longer with the sniggering Gaidamansky. He said to the actress Tiles: ‘What a charming Jewish girl you are!’

198

Part 3

And in her absence: ‘Why does everyone hate the Jews, eh? It can’t be just an accident.’ And he wailed like an old woman: ‘Ah, life is hard, but we’ve got to live… Thanks Nikita Sergeevich—if it were not for him I would not have a separate flat, so thank you very much. But Stalin—what a terrible old tsar—to throw you into prison just for one word…’ But on another occasion: ‘Stalin? Now he was a really fine man…’ A correspondent of the local paper was inviting girls into his room, and later he asked me to get him some anti-VD ointment. ‘And why don’t you go yourself?’ ‘I can’t, I’m a local.’ Blizzard. The actors are sitting in the hotel without any light, without wages—there is nobody to whom we can send our ‘ardent greetings’… The cattle are perishing on the black earth, the chauffeurs and shepherds are dozing in the hotel corridor, I am lying on my bed reading Kochetov’s ‘Secretaries of the Obkom’: ‘These were inspectors, but inspectors of a special kind…’ My room-mate Vitia Mikhailov (who looks like a thug) is reading Stefan Zheromsky. Gaidamansky had been trying to get him off with an accordionist, Nina. She was an unattractive girl, and the attempt was obviously failing. Mikhailov vanished for a couple of nights on adventures of his own. Nina was just sitting there with a swollen nose and red eyes… The chauffeur-son of the hotel manager also vanished, probably stuck on the road, while here a mirror has fallen to the floor and is smashed to pieces—commotion… Gaidamansky, crossing himself, brusquely commands: ‘Collect all the pieces and throw them out—this means bad luck!’ ‘What about the frame?’ ‘Leave the frame!’ With nothing else to do, I occupied myself physically with polishing the floors in the hotel. When Gaidamansky caught sight of me his face expressed shock and horror—is it really possible to sink so low? (A very typical attitude to work on the part of state workers and peasants). But I shall never forget one of his phrases: ‘Doesn’t everyone have family members who are Communists? The trouble is—when one of them falls from grace, aren’t all of them going to be affected?’ I had an idea that, in all likelihood, this thought would never deter a wellintentioned and loyal person from declaiming from the stage the monologues of stakhanovites and loyal crewmembers of the good ship Cheliuskin. Respect the whip when it is in somebody else’s firm grasp! With ardent greetings!

Part 3

199

83. CHAPAEVSKY STREET When I used to come here years ago, this five-storey building did not exist. One of the residents was a distant relative of Solzhenitsyn and sometimes he came to visit her. When I called, a woman opened the door. She had said to me on the phone: ‘There’s no reason to be nervous, he’s just an ordinary man…’ I had an idea she was an elderly woman, and worldly-wise. Only the second was true—in front of me stood a beautiful young brunette with a face that I recognised. ‘We have already met somewhere,’ she said. Yes, I knew I had seen someone like her in Sokol… I began to be a regular visitor to this flat in Chapaevsky, and had quietly found a base for myself in the kitchen where Veronika Valentinovna cooked and also marked her students’ compositions. Sometime later she dragged me into a shop and chose for me a nice overcoat—in my old coat she thought I looked like a salesman (and in my raincoat, like the chairman of a collective farm). Later she looked for a suit and a shirt for me—but perhaps I had already begun to make a bit of a nuisance of myself: ‘No, that’s no good, it’s too big…’ Yura Shtein, Veronika’s husband, said in a restrained voice: ‘Perhaps he’s right? But why are you spoiling him like this? He isn’t a child! Perhaps he doesn’t really need a shirt?’ They had two young girls—one of pre-school age, the other in the second year, and their house was always full of people. Veronika had to go to the other end of town to get to work—for people living in Sokol that meant a journey first by metro and then by trolleybus; in other words she had enough on her plate without having to cope with me. I wrote in my diary: ‘We don’t have a tradition of Platonic love; people who observe such a thing belong to other classes and to other epochs.’ True, Platonic love did belong somewhere in my past. In Frunze I managed to fall in love with a thirteen-year-old girl, Natasha Ponomareva, similar in both general appearance and facial features to the ‘Unknown Girl’ in Kramskoi’s painting. Even though I didn’t exchange two words with her, it ended with a scandal. Several times I gave lectures at her school, for which I received letters of thanks from the authorities; but on those occasions I only saw the top of my unknown little girl’s head—she understood everything, and out of confusion and shame could not lift her gaze. Our deviant relationship could only bring disgrace—we knew that, whatever happened, our guilty little strolls together would at some time have to stop… All I wanted was to sit next to my idol at bedtime and read to her from the loveliest books, and then listen to her breathing after she went to sleep…

200

Part 3

And wasn’t it the same with the actor Artem of the Moscow Arts Theatre? Or Turgenev? There is of course a particular spiritual connection between mother and son and between daughter and father. Veresaev has described how a daughter put an end to her life, having learned that she had lost her father, and that nobody could possibly replace him… If this really was sex, then it was of a special kind; where there can be no talk of either self-restraint or compulsion. It was of a mystical nature perhaps. Veronika’s clear hazel eyes involuntarily met with mine—the helpless eyes of an alcoholic—and our conversation became indistinct… Yura went off to shoot a film for two months, and, as he was saying goodbye, he issued a warning: ‘Don’t play the fool with me!’ We didn’t ‘play the fool’ but when he came home—I was still sitting in my usual place. It was as though he had just gone out to a nearby shop. Once I got too close; Veronia didn’t move away from me and just said: ‘Do you really want me to pay the price?’ But Yura had sent his wife a ten-page letter, all about freedom. It was something like one of those romantic stories of love among the highborn… Veronika was the niece of Polkovnikov, the last commandant of Petrograd. And her father, apparently, was the author of many screenplays, including ‘The Tailor from Torzhok’. Solzhenitsyn, when he sketched the heroine of his short story ‘Candles in the Wind’, was describing Veronika; he, too, was by no means indifferent to her, and did not hide the fact. One day as I was going out I kissed Veronika; she said: ‘When Yurka is around don’t you dare do that!’ ‘Why not?’ ‘I won’t allow you to play on his nerves in that way!’ From my point of view, playing on somebody’s nerves begins where there is food for fantasy; how far from freedom was the relationship between this husband and wife? ‘Veronia, if you think of me as a real man—that would be pointless…’ I was certainly not presenting myself as a rival to the muscular, energetic Yura, who happened to share the same family name as my friend Seriozha (incidentally, it was through me that they become acquainted). Veronia observed that he did not believe in the problem of physical strength; but there was a problem of desire… My main problem and hers as well, was to maintain the right to look him straight in the eyes, and in this we were successful. She kissed me only rarely; but one day we accidentally kissed each other on the lips, and Veronika said: ‘No, that’s not allowed.’

Part 3

201

On one occasion at the dacha we went for a long stroll in the forest; we sat down, and then lay down side by side—I don’t know, maybe she wanted to experience the ‘torments of Tantalus’, but I felt nothing, apart from neverending jealousy. On her birthday I composed some verses that ended: In the everyday sea, without maps, without directions, I am swimming like a blind kitten. There’s just one emotion I lack: Give me a slap in the face, Yura! Please! I am waiting! I did receive a slap in the face—not from Yura, but from Veronia. It’s not worth recalling… 84. UNEMPLOYED This time I was without a job for more than seven months. It was not just my ‘unreliability’ that made it difficult for me to find work. In Moscow there were many hidden forms of unemployment. Of course it was always possible to get a job as a bricklayer, navvy, loader or plain labourer. Incidentally, even here there are ‘sinecures’ into which you would not be able to gain entry— try to worm your way into becoming a storekeeper, let’s say, or a cloakroom attendant, or to land an ‘environmental’ job like grave-digging. Deviantminded or unreliable people have to survive with work that only pays a pittance: They sacked my friend Anatoli E. from a night watchman’s job, where he received altogether sixty roubles (and where they made no adverse comment about his work). He valued this occupation because it left him with a lot of free time, which he was not going to devote to idleness. Everyone wanted to go to Moscow, while nobody was prepared to move out; because that’s where the sausages were—both horsemeat and liver. If you go to the periphery of the city and get taken off the tenant list, and afterwards go back and try and get yourself re-registered—no chance! My mama, for example, could not get a propiska for her only son, even though she had lots of spare living space. That cut no ice with the militia. Fortunately, Eda and I, before we separated, were living nearby; they registered me at her address, as it was not proposed to break up a Soviet family. Later I succeeded in getting registered with mother, when she became a pensioner. Energetic young people, after finishing their higher education, wanted to remain in Moscow, and in order to do so often entered into fictitious marriages. There were as many professional people in Moscow as uncastrated dogs. Eda, for example, after she finished at the institute, worked for almost a

202

Part 3

year as a medical-intern at the polyclinic attached to the Stalin-Ligachev factory. In the Moscow theatres, actors performing leading roles received, and still receive, salaries no greater than those given to ticket checkers and cleaners. It is sad that Pushkin was killed by Dantes, but it is even sadder that an actor, playing the role of the great poet in an especially successful production about him, gets no more than sixty roubles. Being without work was fine for me because I could spend most of my time in Veronia’s flat. Besides, now and then I wanted to go to the chess rooms in the All-Russia Theatre Association. I was able finally to get a grip on myself and ask them to give me some work. They sent me off on a twoweek expedition to Tomsk to help the people’s theatres—under the slogan: ‘Professionals—for the Amateurs’. 85. TOMSK Also on the mission with me was an experienced orator and man of the theatre, Anatoli Yurevich Guz, for whom these journeys were a way of life. Although he was accustomed to perching himself on a rostrum to make a speech, visiting local government departments, or getting involved in a special event such as a drama competition, he cut a very poor figure on stage. His clumsiness made him extremely miserable, and he also complained loudly about his poverty and lamentable family life… In Tomsk oblast there were three people’s theatres—in Kolpashevo, Asino and Kozhevnikovo. In recent years they have not sent anyone to Kozhevnikovo—the theatre there is a complete fiction, and in all that time they have only managed to put on one production, ‘The Prodigal Son’. This needed five actors—in this case all of them were senior officials in the regional department of culture. But now it is impossible to stage ‘The Prodigal’ because they have broken up the region, and the lead actor has moved to another area—not far away, admittedly, but the ‘patriotic’ incentive for keeping together this team has been lost. And without the daily involvement of a director productions have ingloriously ceased. They have taken ‘The Drummer Girl’ to another location in the region. The play is about a female spy—an intelligence officer, that is. Everybody thinks that the heroine is a ‘German sheep-dog’, but in reality she is not German at all. They all despise her, but nobody thinks it strange that the authorities don’t arrest her. The heroine suffers torments, but even to her favourite person she cannot even hint that she is undertaking a challenging task set by high command—and by the author. The person playing her part was not a cultured woman, although in real life a nice person and very natural. But on stage she was liable to take up wildly inappropriate poses and

Part 3

203

in general looked far from confident. Fear sometimes caused her to forget how to breathe. Before her ‘death’ she extended a huge arm towards us and with an unconvincing smile declaimed: ‘Remember us as beautiful people.’ Kolpashevo is a regional centre in the very north of the oblast, where the rates of pay are higher. It is a stable community that includes some professional people, but you couldn’t hope to find support in the cultural sphere. Also the only access is by plane, so touring groups don’t often visit. Probably that’s why amateur talent is held in high esteem. Or, more likely, it’s because actors there enjoy a range of indulgences, such as receiving their salary between engagements. Soviet working conditions are full of such anomalies—amateur sportsmen are treated in the same way. The Kolpashevo director had lived in the place all his life and was a correspondence student of the Vakhtangovsky Theatre School. He was a dull and uneducated fellow, but a passionate fisherman and an enthusiastic reader of Sofronov. ‘Why don’t Muscovites like Sofronov? Are they spoilt for choice?’ But we didn’t see any of Sofronov’s productions (luckily!) They entertained us with ‘Irkutsk Story’, a play about Valka, a girl living frugally, who becomes a very expensive liability when she goes to live with another partner. Such things do happen… In Moscow they warned us categorically not to talk about Sofronov’s plays or have conversations with anyone that gave expression to unorthodox opinions. Fortunately at Kolpashevo there was a student collective that was entirely independent of the People’s Theatre. The students put on ‘Good Luck!’ by V. Rozov. I had studied this play thoroughly and in detail, I praised it for its good taste—and I could have wished that more independent artistes would form similar collectives, along the lines, for example, of the ‘Sovremennik’ Theatre or the magazine Novi Mir. But subdued applause for the actual production took the edge off my rapture. In Tomsk oblast I did not see any hunger: there was enough fermented cabbage, there was lard, even meat at that time, and plenty of places for fishing—and for hunting as well, especially if you were not a nine-to-five toiler. Bread was made from grey wheat. As for home-brewed liquor, the police were unable to cope—sometimes they would destroy the still, sometimes drink it along with the people from the collective farms; but they never prosecuted anybody, their lives were too valuable. I noted quite a few Siberian names, such as Kabyrdak, Kizets, Yabeika. And some verses from the locality: A little star has fallen from the sky And sparkles like a crystal.

Part 3

204

So we loved Khrushchev, Just like our very own Stalin! A little star has fallen from the sky Straight into my dear one’s trousers— Even if it makes a right old mess, Let there not be war! And, on another occasion, I even heard this in the house of someone living in Moscow, who may have been a member of the Pokrass family of actors: Ah, the little apples, And the juicy pears— Stalin murdered Kirov On the darkened stairs! Eda got me ready for my journey to Tomsk, but all the time I went on about Veronica, and it ended by Eda asking: ‘Did you fuck her?’ I managed to control myself. It was my fault, but that’s how I trained her: to be outspoken. No, not just me; there were lots of other men who were her ‘teachers’—most of all university lecturers and postgraduates; one of them was even a prize-winning professor, Zhenka Mishchenko. With a radiant smile, Eda told me a secret she shared with my neighbour Sima: Leonid Ilich himself was looking after Sima’s friend Tamara. And she added tenderly: ‘Leonid Ilich understands everything…’ At which I couldn’t keep back: ‘I’m sick and tired of everyone! Especially you women! Especially those whom Leonid Ilich likes! And all those who just love to go on about this sort of thing!’ Now, influenced by new people and a new culture, I found myself looking at my Edochka differently. One day Veronia said something, using unaccustomed words: ‘Why do you pointlessly hurt a woman’s feelings, pointlessly torment her? Don’t you know what she needs?’ Somebody like Gubanov, from our disillusioned young crowd in Moscow, decided to give Yevtushenko a ‘new’ name: Gapon. The nickname stuck. Friends of Yevtushenko even threatened to burn his effigy in the

Part 3

205

street; but the well-known poet gave them a hundred roubles outright to abandon the idea… I wrote a muddle-headed letter to Lord Russell, apropos the Jews: it’s not just the Jews who are finding life difficult—we all are. I am expecting some unpleasantness to come of it. The newspaper correspondent Shatunovsky has said something about us in print: that ‘we have accumulated a mass of damaging medical reports’. I think that many people are undeservedly marked down as insane. For example I never noticed any abnormality in Yesenin-Volpin; and one thing that I have not mentioned about Slavka Repnikov: it’s true that, after a ten-year sentence, he’s begun to drink a fair amount; but this is a pathological aspect of society as a whole. ‘On Passionate Boulevard, one passionate week, embracing passionately, you and I sat down together’… I woke up, made a note and went to sleep again. Another time something came to mind along the lines of: ‘On Trumpet Square I heard a trumpet voice’. I ought to have noted it down, but I was lazy and now forget what it was. Solzhenitsyn said that he had not read Olesha’s novel ‘Envy’; but the idea that he has counter-revolutionary dreams is surely nonsensical—a person dreams about what’s around him. But this optimist, Olesha, who sings in the toilet every morning, what is going on around him? The first decade after 1917? Well, that wasn’t such a bad one. When I was locked up, all I could see in my dreams was that I was simply a prisoner… I brought a tape with some of Okudzhava’s songs to Chapaevsky Lane, in Moscow, and Solzhenitsyn listened to it for a whole hour. ‘Real poetry…’ But then the song ‘Girls for money’… He gave me an unbearably intense look. I averted my eyes. At his place in Ryazan, which is a semi-basement in Kasimovsky Street, there is on the right-hand table a bronze statuette of a prisoner—it was a gift from the family of a sculptor-prisoner. ‘That was a mistake—a prisoner should hold on to his bowl, not give it away.’ Also on the table were two editions of ‘Denisovich’ in Japanese: on the cover of one appear the eyes of Stalin set against the ruinous abscess of Hiroshima; while the other bears the image of a general’s chest blazing with stars. The cover of an American publication shows Stalin in full figure, the image crossed by two red sashes.

206

Part 3

The head of the household is stern, always in a rush; even when we are getting ready for bed, he is still giving orders. 86. GRANDMOTHER FENIA We read one of the Gospels together—she doesn’t acknowledge any other kind of book, and I need edification. ‘Love will never cease, although prophecies come to an end and tongues fall silent and knowledge is done away with.’ ‘For it must be so, even for the dissenters among you, in order that the clever ones among you will be revealed.’ ‘Gusarov—not bad,’ said Solzhenitsyn, ‘but listen to your grandmother— what a musical voice! We don’t talk, we just croak…’ My grandmother did not speak with ordinary pronunciation, although she had fallen out of the habit of speaking Ukrainian. ‘When I was young, fifteen years old, I was adopted by a drunken Russian family…’ Her ‘o’ from the Volga area was not clearly voiced; evidently, people from the Tsaritsyn, Saratov and Astrakhan regions retained the unstressed ‘o’. In short, it must have been reading aloud from religious books that gave her such a musical way of speaking—maybe it would not be a bad idea if our leaders were to learn from her how to speak a better kind of Russian. It’s a pity that before Isaich came on the scene I did not make notes of some of her expressions: If a person had died whose behaviour was not terribly praiseworthy, Grandmother, pursing her lips, would nod her head and say: ‘He will sizzle in a hot place.’ When she had become familiar with town life she picked up the word ‘chest’ (not for our leaders’ medals, but a woman’s breast); but because there are two of them, she says: ‘I was young then, my chests were big. A Turkish man looks at me: ‘Good, Moscow, good’. ‘Looked at you?’ I ask doubtfully. She modestly drops her eyes. Once I shouted at her; she turned away, took offence. But I cooled down, and I really pitied her for growing old. I went up to her and kissed her—in order to relieve the tension. ‘Why are you kissing me, it’s not Thursday today…’ ‘What has Thursday got to do with it?’ ‘It was on Thursday that Judas kissed Jesus Christ. (It seems this happened on Wednesday; but it did not make any difference to Grandmother—that’s how I remembered it.)

Part 3

207

She loved to talk about my father’s younger brother Georgi, who died after he was a prisoner of war in Austria; although, according to Grandmother, conditions there were not too bad, and he was able to tutor the children of an Austrian officer. But she talked most often about Palestine. For about two weeks she pleaded to go, not expecting to obtain permission from the governor; but in the end she was successful. She spent almost a year there—from home she took a sack of flour and a large bottle of vegetable oil for the journey, but she didn’t possess any chattels or property; only one thing: the ancient burden of servitude… (Try going there now!) Most of all she talks about Christ and the saints. Listening to her stories about Joseph, about Sulamifi, about Solomon, I began to try the patience of the old lady: ‘Grandma, surely Christ was a Jew.’ She was ready for a quarrel, but in the end solemnly declared: ‘Volodia, that was at a time when everyone was a Jew.’ I noted down one of her stories, which was about Nikolia-the-fool. Some good chekists found him at the time of the widespread searches after the arrest of Piotr Yakir. Later, after the Yakir-Krasin affair was over, there were some minor revelations, among them Grandmother’s tale (the photographs were seized, but I remember them). Now I cannot find my notes; I must have buried them away somewhere. So I will write from memory, trying to use my grandmother’s style. It’s good to know that this particular piece passed the censor, just as did Terts-Siniavsky’s ‘A Voice from the Chorus’. 87. NIKOLIA-THE-FOOL ‘Ai, ai, ai! Are you really like that? Always in opposition to the government?’ Grandmother shakes her head disapprovingly. ‘Government—that’s not our business. All power comes from God!’ ‘Don’t you understand, Grandma, I have long felt that, sooner or later, they will be throwing the desks out of government office windows in Old Square. It doesn’t matter how much you blow a bubble, come what may, it’s going to burst sooner or later!’ Grandmother suddenly became animated and talks rapidly in a soft voice: ‘I know! I know this better than you!’ and not waiting for my response, begins: ‘Nikolia-the-fool was running around in Sloboda, like Vasili the Blessed when he was barefoot and without a cap. If someone praises his clothes, he tries to take them off and give them away to someone who needs them, but wise people tried to feed him and give him things. They knew him even in Kamyshin. Tsvirkunikha, his niece, took him to her aunt, who was his sister. That was the place where they were born, and in fact that’s where he ended up—but he was a clever man for those times! Then, there was a gymnasium only in Saratov and in Stalingrad.’ (That’s exactly what she said,

208

Part 3

but we will forgive her—it was only six months to her ninety fifth birthday.) ‘They put him in charge of the railway station in Pokrovsky—it’s Engels now. He was a very correct man, although a bachelor; but… he fell into violent ways. They carted him off to Saratov, to a lunatic asylum; there wasn’t such a thing in Stalingrad. Although we were Stalingrad people it was all the same to us—Marusia studied in Saratov, Georgi died there, and I was a patient in the hospital…’ ‘Oh, Grandma, you’ve already told us about that…’ ‘Yes… Nikolya was in Saratov for about five years, then his family receive a letter: come and take away your invalid! So we came. It was like a hospital—there were doctors and medical orderlies and nuns. They are saying: he won’t be violent anymore; it won’t even cross his mind—and he’s perhaps cleverer than all of us. A doctor went up to him one day, held his hand, felt his pulse. ‘How are you today, Nikolia, how did you sleep?’ ‘I slept here, where did you sleep?’ The doctor was embarrassed: it seemed Nikolia wanted to find out if the doctor had not spent the night at home. ‘Tsvirkunikha, the mother of Kirik, was his niece, so he used to live in our courtyard. She kept a place on top of the stove for him, then she put a little bench beside it, so his visitors could come and chat with him. But however long I live, whatever harvests we have, it would be time to marry off this son… Nikolia did not say much—he will growl two or three words into his sheepskin coat. In Kamyshin, another of his nieces gave birth to a daughter. They christened her, brought her home and went into another room to celebrate with the godparents. They were having a party, but they wanted to glance at the child. They unwrapped the new white swaddling clothes, but ashes were scattered all over the child. Nikolia hid in a corner—well, why would anybody do such a thing? They are asking: ‘Nikolia, why did you do this?’—‘I haven’t done anything, all I did was commit her to the earth.’ It was a prophecy, within a month the little girl died. I was still unmarried, I had nursed other people’s children, and played in the street with other girls, they were getting us ready for the festival of the Kazan Mother of God—they were tidying everything up at the town hall, they were decorating the church. Nikolia looked in at the town hall and said: ‘The Romanovs are getting ready to bake bliny!’ Afterwards he got himself into church: ‘The Romanovs are getting ready to bake bliny!’ None of the cleaners could make any sense of what he was muttering; then again, so loudly, so clearly, he said: ‘The Romanovs are going to bake bliny!’ Then many people were having doubts: what kind of bliny? Which Romanovs? They went to the town hall, and there all the officials were gathered, they had only just received a telegraph message from Saint Petersburg: the Tsar has died. They are making bliny—it means they are preparing for the funeral supper… He called me Fedopsia Andrevna—well, I don’t mind what he calls me.

Part 3

209

‘When our people were ready to go to Palestine, they gave our papers to the district police officer. I was already a widow, my husband left me a little book, I sold the tools, but I myself sewed the shroud and painted the coffin for my father-in-law—how many times did I lie down in the coffin, if the dead person was the same height as me; now I’m not afraid to lie in a coffin, just so long as they don’t incinerate me—how would I appear before God— just as ashes?’ ‘Grandmother, don’t distract yourself; you had begun to tell us about Nikolia.’ ‘The believers call me to go to Palestine, they already have permission, I also applied, but I did not get an answer, then I learned—the Governor made inquiries in Kursk province; the Gusarovs came from there after they were freed in 1861… We went to see Nikolia, we are asking him: ‘Will Andrevna go to Palestine?’ He raised his head: ‘You won’t go without Fedopsia Andrevna!’ They went without me. I didn’t get my paper in time. Later I boarded the steamer alone. I had a suitcase, and bundles and a large bottle in a bag. And then an elderly Jew says that you have to have your ticket endorsed, and without a place you will be left behind. And he promised to guard my things. I was young then, I didn’t know that you have to beware of Jews, but I left him to guard them.’ ‘Well, what happened?’ ‘Nothing, he guarded my things, while I went to get my ticket endorsed… I arrived in Odessa, and our people are still there—the Turks were afraid of an epidemic and their ship was put in quarantine. Again it worked out as Nikolia had said—‘without Andrevna you will not go’. In Odessa a clerk says: ‘Why don’t you have a governor’s permit? Perhaps you want to abandon an infant son?’ I didn’t know what to say, but Marusia gave him three roubles; then he understood that I was not going to abandon anyone, and he wrote something on a piece of paper. They gave me a place on the boat, and they gave me a pair of binoculars…’ ‘Grandmother, you have told us about Palestine a hundred times, tell us about Nikolia!’ ‘Who else can I be talking about? For one merchant, Kirenkov, who was sitting on a bench in his garden, Nikolia wrote down a day, a month and a year—and on that very day Kirenkov died… When the German war began, Pavliuchikha, the miller’s wife, even as far as twenty versts went to see Nikolia—then they took Pavliuk the miller off to the war. ‘Nikolia, when is the war going to end?’—‘The third of November.’ The third of November came, then the fifth, then the tenth—the war was not ending. Later they sent Pavliuchikha a packet, on it was written: ‘Your husband was killed on the third of November’. That’s how it came about that, for him and for her, the war ended. Nikolia’s fur-coat was made of sheepskin; they dipped it in the wrong colour, it became red; they gave it to Nikolia—in the cold he wrapped

210

Part 3

himself up in it and put it on against the cold. It was still cold, people are coming, but Nikolia tore up the entire fur-coat, he is making bundles out of the remnants of the fur and is tying them up. ‘Why are you doing this, Nikolia?’—‘There is going to be an urgent need for red bows! They need more…’ Yes, that’s truly what he said! Two weeks went by—they threw out the tsar, they bruised the head of a police officer on a post and fastened all the red bows—some on their chests, some on their caps. They needed many bows… Even the sugar-mill owner Kuryliov, a serious man, fixed a bow on himself. After the revolution he disappeared—he threw out his wife and children, and ran off; perhaps he vanished forever. After about two years a widower came to woo Kurylchikha, but she doesn’t know: will her husband return, or won’t he. She went to Nikolia and asks: ‘will I ever see my Afanasia Petrovich?’ ‘Neither him, nor his grave.’ And so Kurylchikha went after the widower. Afterwards more than once I am asking in Kamyshin and in Sloboda: ‘Has Kuryliov been seen here?’ ‘No’, they are saying. One day Nikolia saw me, he was with little Nikolai, three years old; and he was walking, being led by the hand. Nikolia looked at us and says: ‘Our children are great, they have grown bigger than us, they have become bi-i-ig people!’ And what will you say? Nikolai was a great boss! He had his own railway carriage, his own aeroplane; and Voroshilov, and Malenkov, and Shvernikov came to visit him, and something was written about him on calendars. Perhaps not for long, but he was in charge… And they fired guns for Vasil Vasilich on the Kremlin wall, with the most senior secretaries. Already when your father flew off to the Urals, I remembered Nikolia’s words: ‘Our children are great, they have grown bigger than us’. When they chased away Denikin’s people, Trotsky used to come to Kamyshin to speak from a red tribune—people gathered around—thousands!’ ‘Are you sure it wasn’t Stalin who came?’ ‘No, Trotsky. Then Stalin was standing at the back, he had to, he was listening and checking. And then later, when they began to curse Trotsky, your grandmother, Andreevna, swore that she saw under a soldier’s cap belonging to Trotsky little horns, so small they were, you could hardly see them from under his hair, you had to look really hard. And Nikolia moved about in the crowd and went on repeating: ‘The barrel has turned upside down. The time will come when it will be upright again!’ But he is not looking at the tribune, he only glanced once and said: ‘Kommunary… commissars… you are still like tigers going for each other’s throats!’ And that was true! The only thing I heard on the radio about Stalin: his harvest and his radiant sunshine, and now they don’t even know where to bury him. And then I thought: ‘Well, what a great man, thanks be to him; but in order to honour him rather than the sun—I still need to know, why?’ And again I recalled Nikolia, when they put on his epaulettes—the barrel will stand upright again! They buried Nikolia in ’twenty-three; they wanted to bury him

Part 3

211

alongside his father Vasili, they wanted to show him to be a servant of God— but the church authorities said ‘no’. And afterwards they destroyed the church, and they dug up the burial ground for culture and rest. Only at that place where Nikolia was buried—exactly there!—a flower-bed was put. A servant of God he really was, however much you twist the truth! And I will say to you—we will not live so long, but everything will be as Nikolia-thefool used to say, he did not once make a mistake. Only you, don’t talk to anyone, in case they drag me to Sugint.’ (Sugint—empowered by the Cheka in the first years of the revolution; peasants even then used to say: ‘With your way of talking you will end up at Sugint.’) ‘Don’t say anything to anyone; but for the life of me, I can’t think of any more to tell you… But remember Nikolia’s words: ‘The barrel has turned upside-down—the time will come when it will be right side up again!’’ 88. TELEVISION Father helped me to get a job as assistant director in a Moscow TV editorial office. At the same time I declined to work as an agitator in the elections: most people understood by then that I was an awkward customer; although they continued to listen with satisfaction to my rendering of Korzhavin and Galich. I played chess on the first board on television and won against a psychiatrist from Solovevskaya Hospital. It did not bring me fame, but viewers followed the broadcasts enthusiastically, and I am still recognised in the street and on the metro—when I am without a beard. What’s good about television? Those same programmes were still going when mama was alive, and they have been repeating some of the films for the past fifteen years at least. I was young myself then, and my beloved wife had not yet left me… ‘In interviews people talk about the political and economic crisis, but when somebody makes a speech, it is always about momentous future developments for Communism,’ said Galina Chistiakova, the editorial Party organiser. On another occasion she said: ‘Under Stalin Lenin was the guide, under Malenkov again Lenin—and now, it’s still Lenin! Do they think we are complete fools?’ But when she invited Sofronov to speak, she was indignant at her colleagues’ response: ‘And who doesn’t like Sofronov? Only snobs!’ The chief editor’s deputy Ivan Ivanovich Sedin, a drunkard and a devious member of the nomenklatura, was in Czechoslovakia when they threw out Khrushchev.

212

Part 3

‘The Czechs are outraged. They condemn the means that were used to get rid of him. They cannot understand that it is still impossible to do things openly—they seem to think that Khrushchev has a button on his writing table that he can press to make democracy make a start! Czechs don’t understand this, they just don’t understand, they’re angry…’ As a rule the editors are illiterate; I’m not saying anything about the directors, perhaps on that subject it would be wise to remain silent. One of the editors, Margolin, very direct and by no means stupid, said that Dyakov’s novel ‘Experience’ was of a higher order than ‘Ivan Denisovich’. The fall of Khrushchev gave everyone a bit of a shock; it only gave satisfaction to people like Sedin—anti-Semites and careerists. An amusing episode: I was assistant to the director Shvabrin, and he instructed me to do some research on the leaning Tower of Pisa—somebody had decided to produce a programme about Soviet scientists and their efforts to save the structure. Not having any experience in such matters, I dug around in the archives for a long time and suddenly came across a film about a visit to Pisa by A. N. Kosygin, who had just become chairman of the Council of Ministers. (At this period they had taken out of circulation any material that included images of Khrushchev.) I was happy to please our operatives with this find, and, beaming, I told them that the film included footage not only of the collapsing tower, but also of our new premier. A gloomy silence took command of the room. The editor Nina Noskova slowly spelled it out: ‘Well, now we find ourselves creating a new personality cult.’ They showed the tower in Pisa, but cut out Kosygin. The same Noskova was angered by the film ‘Ordinary Fascism’: ‘According to Romm it is still happening today that the Jews…’ This was a shameful chapter of the Second World War; but was it really like that? The Jews themselves were to blame for letting themselves be exterminated; why did they offer no resistance? ‘If they began to resist, that’s when they would become the aggressors,’ I thought to myself, but remained silent. I never managed to see this film on television; another one about Fascism gained prominence, sanctified by the critics Rollan and Feikhtvanger. The chief editor Mushnikov was just as much a Stalinist as Sedin, but even less literate. Despite this, people treated him with respect: he was a war invalid and did not make a nuisance of himself trying to get additional work (unlike Sedin, who shamelessly made use of his war service status). More than that, he was a stickler for accuracy and was a teetotaller. When he died they wept for him, sincerely. People like me get into television extremely rarely, and don’t stay there for long.

Part 3

213

89. ZAOCHNI NARODNI UNIVERSITET ISKUSSTV ZNUI—People’s External University of the Arts—was located in Armiansky Street in Moscow. I wanted to become a teacher in theatre studies; but on Left-bank Street, in a technical school, it was a long time before they would even talk to me, once they knew that I was not a Party member. True, the director had advised me to phone them, but I quickly realised that nothing would come of such calls. In the end, poor father, still hoping to find me the kind of work which would suit my aptitudes, and which at the same time ‘would stop me from defaming his grey hairs’, helped me to get a post at this establishment. I felt very uncomfortable there. The ZNUI, although financed by the students, was completely under government control. Anybody could enrol, but they had to pay a fee. Literature was sent out to the students, and written tutorials were given. But the university did not issue professional testimonials of any practical use, beyond creating a vaguely favourable impression in the minds of some ill-informed arts club directors. But it did have a strong and interesting painting faculty—Young Pioneers as well as pensioners could paint their nocturnes—sorry, still lifes—under the supervision of a tutor. They sent off their rolls of canvas to the ZNUI and received an appraisal together with instructions for their next assignment. Learning to play the balalaika was more complicated, or, for that matter, the skills of acting and directing. Of course even for the literary courses masses of teaching manuals, records and instructional guides were sent out, but none of the staff thought to ask how they managed with all this material. Quite possibly the average student could only pronounce half of the vowels of the Russian language, but that was a personal matter. Just pay your money and get studying! There were occasions when reality confused the statistics, for example when a brother or a neighbour would respond instead of the ‘student’. And why not let them take part, what harm was it doing? Soviet power still prides itself on its free education; but what’s on offer here, for hardearned money, are qualifications of little worth… But ZNUI caught a chill when the Regional Communist Commission arrived. (Many party pensioners had nothing to do, and since it was necessary to finish the task of building Communism, these people were sent off to inspect us.) Both the administration and the tutors were alarmed when the commission found out that one of the students who had completed our educational course was a prisoner—what a scandal! But they managed to cope with this problem: the prisoner had proved himself to be an outstanding student of labour and political training; he was not a dissident, just an ordinary thief; and he had embarked on his studies with the permission of the directors (but how otherwise was this possible?) But they discovered something else which they could not suppress, and for which no justification could

214

Part 3

be found. This concerned a priest from Lugansk, Lev Nikitovich Torundo, who had completed a course in the faculty of theatre studies, submitting high-principled answers on the subject of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics. Concealing his real vocation, he had the temerity to produce a play strikingly similar to ‘The Kremlin Chime of Bells’, including a part for Lenin himself! If this was not defamation, what was? And how did he allow himself to make use of knowledge obtained on the course in this way?… The people here are not like those in television, where teams of specialists are extremely focused on the work in hand. Our duties are fulfilled in more generalised collectives, and the overlap of responsibilities leads to a situation where people become nervous, embittered, and unable to see things in perspective. On payday almost the whole collective goes off to the wine shop (only the director does not drink in the company of his subordinates); but they hold their tongues even when inebriated. They regarded me with suspicion—what kind of bird is this, already getting ninety roubles? It is true, people do receive more, but this is not salary, they are clocking up overtime working for the Faculty of Social Sciences. Somewhere far above us they invented this Faculty as an adjunct to higher education, although they have given it neither a budget nor a programme; it’s just blue-sky thinking: a person studies to become an agronomist, teacher or doctor, and along the way perfects his technique on the accordion. He will receive a diploma and a short ‘testimonial’—afterwards they will direct him to some remote place, and, lo and behold, that community will benefit from acquiring two specialists in one person. They almost spent a whole meeting on this topic—it’s sure to be a terribly good idea—the big city bringing enlightenment and art to the countryside! By day the young medical specialist cures the sick, while in the evenings he directs the dance group at the club (but does the peasant really want to be cured by the ballet master?) This problem—how the agronomist might also be competent to direct a choir—I was unable to solve on my ninety-roubles-a-month salary, while also fulfilling other missions of the teaching department—that is to say helping those who had nothing to do. Some additional activities might have been found, setting up a filmmaking faculty for example; but the ministry prefers balalaikas and folk dancing—the devil knows what they might get up to without proper control: make sense of that if you can! Still, I did throw in one idea: open a literary faculty. I went to the Literary Institute, at which well thought-out programmes were available—how to write short stories, novels, poems, plays. But they themselves, involved in theoretical research projects, have still not worked out how to extend their ideas into the framework of external tutorials in a rural setting. What is needed is a coherent form of instruction: write sonnets and patriotic lyrics in the first year; in the second, ballads and poems; and in the third, novels. The head of the teaching department said to me:

Part 3

215

‘Abandon the thought: would-be writers are filling you up with antiSoviet ideas—you will not be pleased by the outcome. We know what free creativity represents—either gibberish or something distinctly anti-Soviet…’ One person who spent a lot of time in ZNUI was a student of the Archive Institute, Volodka Prokopenko, a very vocal Stalinist, but who spoke with a stammer. He was the son of the head of the Shepilov Archive. We thought of him as an archivist; although the archive was located in the Lenin Hills, while we were in Armiansky Street. In the morning he would rush in, pick up all the gossip, tell some jokes, saying something along the lines of: ‘A brilliant victory for Soviet science: an American spacecraft has gone off-course and they were forced to abandon the mission!’ and then go off to hang out somewhere else—probably some other part-time job. And if he stayed, he would certainly get drunk and stay that way until the evening. This was in Khrushchev’s time, and on wall-newspapers they sketched him wearing a moustache: he simply worshipped Stalin and didn’t hide it it. Nobody doubted his party loyalty—he certainly didn’t do time in a psychiatric hospital! A narcotics dependency unit would have been more to the point. Once when we were drinking together I made some rude remarks about him. As a rule I am tolerant, only I certainly don’t like political intriguers. But it became transparently obvious that although he proudly wore the Chekist badge emblazoned with a sword, the possibility of his ever investigating an actual ‘conspiracy’ was absurd (but to quarrel with him would not be clever). It was the power that the badge represented rather than the ideas. I paid him a visit when we had just heard that Svetlana Allilueva had run away. He was not at home, but an old woman opened the door. Numerous portraits of past leaders decorated his writing table and bookshelf; displayed in a prominent position was a well-known photo of Stalin with his daughter. The most interesting people were in the painting faculty—Zakin, Aksenov, Miturich, but they were preoccupied with their own problems; they did not distract themselves with drink, they did not indulge in gossip (they became a little more open after my enforced ‘cure’), in other words they were of the real intelligentsia, and I didn’t have to talk with them to guess their convictions. There were people like that in the musical faculty as well. I got on best with the painting tutor Z. (he was a friend of Tertz’s wife). He was talented but rather absent-minded. I think he expressed the general mood with a fair degree of accuracy. 90. KASHCHENKO In the hospital Dina Yakovlevna became involved in my case. She poisoned me with something or other, stelazine perhaps; I suffered convulsions, vomiting. I kissed her hands so that she would notice me. Then Feliks Yenokho-

216

Part 3

vich Vartanian, head of the department, returned from leave (some people mistakenly thought his middle name was Yenukovich). But it didn’t get any easier for me: they took me off tablets and began injections. I know myself: to get over my exhaustion it’s usually enough to lie low for a week or so, then, with strength restored, I am ready to get myself behind a floor mop again—but still trying to avoid hospital food. But this time it wasn’t like that—the ‘treatment’ itself knocked me off my feet. And perhaps I involuntarily helped them: as supper ended I asked for a soporific so that I wouldn’t have to see or hear anyone, although social considerations did not have the slightest influence on the perpetrators of these medicinal repressions. I just felt that there was nothing for me to hope for. But one day Volodia Gershuni came to see me, and he had an abusive exchange with Vartanian, the latter became very worked up and tried to convince him that there were no repressions, suppressions or reprisals here, it was simply that I was a sick person, and that it was wrong to demand my discharge. In any case, who among us would dare to make that demand? Eda also used to come. And Znamerovsky and Natasha Gevondiants paid me some visits. At the beginning I kept myself amused with some championship football matches, I was not especially interested in the game, but it did help to dispel my boredom. Before the final match the cartoon film maker Edik Traskin sketched some caricatures for ‘Soviet Sport’, and in the ward, where he was a patient, he organised a lottery where you had to guess the result of the match between England and Portugal. Each person predicted a score and made a contribution to a pile of cigarettes, which was the prize. Other patients added three, four or even five cigarettes, while I only put in one. All were convinced that Portugal would win, their favourite star Eusébio was playing for them, but I wanted England to win—I had for a long time been interested in their form of government. At the beginning my prediction was one-nil, but then I remembered Eusébio and changed it to two-nil in favour of England. I won the whole lottery—thirty or forty cigarettes. There was one other person who supported England, but his goal score was wrong. With emotion I listened to the English National Anthem, which the whole stadium sang in a friendly way led by the queen, an extremely beautiful woman. I thought: would our people begin to sing if the Soviet team won in Moscow? The first month I just managed to control myself: I played chess with the doctor’s assistant Liosha, and typed out the text of ‘Tanka’ and ‘Naivnost’ for the staff, but then I became ill again. Kalashnikov was another patient in our department, he belonged to SMOG and struck me as being quite a forceful person. He considered himself to be in good health, in any event believed that he needed to cure himself. For my part I felt that my treatment here would not end well. And the songs that the patients sang did not cheer me up:

Part 3

217

I am alone in this rotten house, I’ve got no friends, no comrades… Only sleep, the sleep of death, and injections, That’s all… Oh yes, and God is ready to greet you… E. Traskin paid us another visit, but this time in a difficult situation. Quite recently he was singing a rather mysterious little song: For a long time nobody here has been expecting me, My widow is dreaming of something completely different, And I am walking around the wooden towns, Where the roadways creak like floorboards… Two weeks ago they discharged him, as though he were cured; but at home he still could not sleep. Back here again now he wanders along the corridors the whole night long, by day lying in bed with a towel over his head. Once in the middle of the night, after I had answered a minor call of nature, I felt drowsy, and looked forward to returning to my bed and falling back to sleep; unfortunately Traskin came up to me and began chattering away like a turkey-cock—but his diction was so unclear that I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, although he normally loved to tell people lengthy stories. I did not listen attentively, simply nodding when there was a pause. But then I heard him mention the title: ‘Ordinary Fascism’. I knew that I would not go back to sleep that night. In the mornings I usually go out into the corridor, and lean against the wall, patiently waiting until they bring glue and cardboard—for me to make boxes. Before now I would never have got involved in such work, but here I had somehow to kill time. I am not going to sit in front of the television any more, or read newspapers; even chess I feel completely indifferent about… Quiet and dull… On my walk I talk to no one, nothing interests me, I smile at nobody. Then all of a sudden who do I see approaching but our old neighbour Serafima Ivanovna Khaliamina. What a surprise that she should come to visit me— but then she has, after all, known me since early childhood… She is a single woman, with enough free time. And she is a person who makes no secret of the fact that she works for the organs. Having just returned from Paris and finished some leave, Sima is going to work, not in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but at the Lubyanka, in Dzerzhinsky Square. And what of it? There are not enough technical people working there. She is a French linguist, and is a good typist and stenographer. Understandably the staffs of Soviet embassies are largely made up of people who have worked at the Lubyanka. And how many times has Sima helped me to put a new ribbon in my typewriter, or clean it, without taking the slightest interest in what I was typing—just

218

Part 3

about as much as I do in her typing. So here she is on a visit. When Grandmother hurt her leg she went to see her in Kuntsevo, and the organs could hardly have taken any interest in her on that occasion. Sima pushes some apples in my direction and asks me nervously: ‘What’s happened to you?’ ‘Nothing, really’, I answer dully. ‘I hope you haven’t noticed anything strange about me?’ ‘Well, perhaps…’ It seems she cannot bring herself to say ‘I would guess…’ ‘…perhaps you’ve been getting involved in high politics?’ ‘But why should I be getting treatment here?’ Sima proposes—as though it was entirely on her own initiative and exclusively out of her affection for me—to introduce me to a very good person. It’s difficult to imagine that anybody who has worked in the organs for so many years, lived in Paris for ten of those years (and probably been exposed to endless temptations there, but Sima was always irreproachable) would suddenly decide to show such initiative, especially in connection with ‘high’ politics. The next day she appeared at a very inopportune time of the day and introduced me to a man of about forty years. ‘Skobelev, Anatoli Pavlovich.’ The good uncle not only had the energy to come to a lunatic asylum to visit a stranger, but also, in spite of his presumably busy life, to come here very quickly. Sima moved back towards the door and then—I hardly noticed—she was gone. ‘So, you have really expressed a wish to meet with a representative of the KGB? I should be interested to hear what you have got to tell me.’ I said that I was prepared to offer them my private archive, conditionally on my early release, since I was rapidly going out of my mind. Skobelev objected that the doctors could see more clearly how long my treatment should continue; but he was interested in the content of my archive. ‘I know what interests you: my ‘Report’. I acknowledge that I am its author, I am even ready to prove this and give you the remaining copy.’ Skobelev, ‘wishing to make my task easier’, suggested that I simply indicate the place where I keep the archive. ‘You will not find it. I don’t regret anything, but I don’t want to buy my freedom for a price. You give me my freedom, I will give you the archive.’ ‘Perhaps it is hidden in the garden?’ ‘No. Don’t exercise yourself, you will not find it. I can bring it to you.’ As a form of guarantee, Skobelev demanded a written undertaking (this from a lunatic asylum!) obliging me to hand over the archive on such-andsuch a date. I wrote it down. And from that I concluded that an ‘agreement’ about my release was not required. Skobelev, evidently paid no attention to

Part 3

219

this detail and several times emphasised that this was a complicated matter; ‘those at the top have to worry about that’. Then I was in no mood for laughing; but listen to how we haggled! Skobelev insisted that so long as I was discharged on the fifteenth, on that day I had to produce the archive. I said that was my birthday, and, if it were decided that I was to leave on that day, I would be celebrating and ‘would be unable to fulfil my undertaking’. But he reminded me that the sixteenth was a Sunday, not a working day. So in the end we settled for the seventeenth. This conversation took place on the thirteenth, and they really did discharge me on the fifteenth, although three days earlier Vartanian had assured me that I was a very sick person. Now, tediously and at length, he had a further talk with me and finished with the words: ‘But, if you really insist, we will discharge you.’ For a long time I had not only stopped ‘insisting’, but had also ceased begging to be left in peace. Vartanian did not begin to say anything about the source of his instructions. Afterwards, when I was at home, the medical assistant Liosha visited and told me that on that day he had asked Vartanian: ‘How has this come about? Gusarov came to us a healthy man, and now he is being discharged a sick one…’ ‘Ah! These are forensically sick people…’ Vartanian had pulled a face, waved his hand and turned away. Liosha wanted me to lend him some of Tsvetaeva’s and Mandelstam’s works, and I happily put into his hands an autographed copy of something by Vera Figner. I don’t know what was in my mind at the time. Later I decided that perhaps I did not deserve to be revealing so frankly such a close connection between the punitive organs and the medical—political burial with the assistance of the health service. It is possible that they expected to discover something about Solzhenitsyn, or part of his archive. After my discharge surveillance of me never stopped, day and night. When Skobelev came for the archive, I put a weighty parcel on the table—I didn’t even have the strength to untie it and ‘clean it up’. (Volodia Gershuni came and lent me for several hours something of Daniel’s, but I couldn’t get myself to read it.) ‘You kept this at your ex-wife’s place?’ Skobelev asked triumphantly, ‘nothing is going to escape us, you know.’ They love to boast about their supernatural intelligence gathering, although there really is no magic in it—it’s simply that surveillance requires enormous resources. But why feel sorry for them, they are just ordinary people! I loafed around a lot at that time, only the undercover agents never left me alone however much I tried to avoid them; I called on my wife literally for a minute, just enough to have my ‘colleagues’ tramp after me, so that Skobelev could ask the question:

220

Part 3

‘Were you keeping it at your ex-wife’s place?’ It was certainly not at her home; it was where she worked, buried among the medical records (administrative enthusiasm for searches does not extend that far). My ex-wife is not interested in Orwell, or Nabokov; in fact she will not waste an evening over a book, least of all over anything like the contents of my archive. Skobelev instructed me to write a ‘clarification’. He dictated it and I wrote it down in my own hand. I didn’t have the strength to do anything else. Now and then I had to set aside my fountain pen and creep under the bedcovers. I can only remember that its style very much reminded me of the way Broks-Sokolov used to write. There was a time when I believed that I no longer had any muscles; it seemed to me that even the blood in my veins stopped flowing as a result of my illness. I only wanted one thing—to extinguish consciousness. If only it were possible to take something, and then patiently await death; but no, I had patiently to go on living. I lay in front of the television unable to distinguish between drama and comedy; it was all the same, whatever was there—a report on the ‘Kauchuk’ rubber factory or something from the Club of Merry Innovators. I dragged myself to my ex-wife’s relatives, where there was also a television; I sat in front of it, understanding nothing, and thought how I could wheedle a sedative out of my father-in-law. Returned home, I swallowed everything all at once; I did not have the patience to work out what I needed to fall asleep forever… Skobelev soon made another appearance, and in the process collided with father. I did not begin to introduce them—it seemed there was no need to do so. In the hospital I refused any meeting with father (while I was still capable of understanding events and expressing my wishes), but on the day of my discharge he came home, in Sokol, for some reason; which means that he knew where I was and what had happened to me. On the morning of the fifteenth I myself was not sure that I would be leaving on that day. Skobelev told me that they were all laughing at him—they had not yet received the text of my ‘Report’. In addition to that item, the parcel contained six copies of ‘The Affairs of Brodsky’, ‘Letter to an Old Friend’, a discussion of Nekrich’s book ‘June 1941’, separate chapters of ‘The New Class’ by Dzhilas. (I formed the impression that Skobelev, although literature was the area he was meant to focus on, had never read anything of Dzhilas. Every time he stumbled on something by him, he would ask: ‘Whose is this?’) In the parcel there were also several chapters of ‘We’ by Zamiatin, re-typed at the request of Isaich (they confiscated all his letters, and even those of Tvardovsky and Drabkina); as well as several reviews of Solzhenitsyn’s works. The most substantial of these was by the government prize-winner V. L. Teush, now deceased—in Literaturnaya Gazeta I noticed that they referred

Part 3

221

to him simply by the name Teush. Who can be surprised, when newspapers now print the name of Academician Sakharov without his initials? The only items not in the parcel were the list of chapter headings from Zamiatin, written in his own hand on a tiny sheet of paper and sent to me in Kashchenko at the time of the events in Czechoslovakia, together with an autographed copy of ‘Denisovich’. In order to extricate myself from Skobelev, I named the librarian Nina and the club director M. V. Grishin of the Finance Ministry as possible possessors of ‘Report’. Skobelev got into his privately owned car and drove off. Incidentally, Vartanian also owned a car. They left me in peace for a while. I even tried to rewrite my composition, but did not have the strength. Someone came to see me who owned a copy, and he tore it up and burnt it in front of me before leaving the room. Up to then I couldn’t bring myself to own up to Mikhail Vasilevich that I had informed on him, and he, of course, never guessed—trust in the ubiquitous organs is such that the amount they knew would be a surprise to no-one. It would be easier to suspect every other fellow-worker than to suspect the most obvious one. But there were no administrative consequences for them: Nina handed over her copy, while Grishin, a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, stated that he had destroyed ‘Report’ when Gusarov acknowledged that he was the author. ‘How could anybody believe in such a libellous squib?!’ one can imagine the chekists asking themselves, ‘Is he trying to make out that KGB personnel are demanding repressions? What does he want, this Gusarov? To set the intelligentsia against the chekists? What’s the state of mind of this psychopath that he can write such stuff? Perhaps we ought to be looking for someone else who’s giving him these ideas?’ ‘No, he could have written this entirely on his own… And we believe that because… We must not allow another nineteen thirty seven to happen…’ Later they summoned Grishin to the KGB and to the Committee of Party Control (KPK), where impervious and dim-witted people such as Skobelev, not squeamish about using blackmail, chatted to him: ‘On whose recommendation did you take on the job of club director?’ They themselves recruit people in their hundreds, and on a salary of ninety roubles, with no particular recommendation asked for; Grishin’s office cleaner, not a party member, gets more than he does. His cultural and sports club, open to all, is one of the best and most popular in Moscow, and that’s no accident—he spends all his time there from morning to night. Directors like that are hard to find. But about two years ago they threw him out of the party. At a meeting of the KPK they read out the official document recording his expulsion; but, apart from forbidding him to say anything about this document to his ‘Party comrades’, they did not even begin to discuss it

222

Part 3

with him. Without a word they took away his party card and marched him to the exit in Old Square. Now Mikhail Vasilievich lives in poverty, makes both ends meet with casual work; but this was no longer my fault, although in this business I did have a part to play. I added some essays of M. P. Yakubovich to a parcel going to Tselinograd in Kazakhstan; but nobody knows anything about this, and I hope their reader will not give me away. For its entertainment value I ought perhaps to have described the situation at the hospital in Kashchenko and the people within it (Karen Melkumov, mentioned in Tarsis’s ‘Ward 7’, was in our department). Now it terrifies me to recall the state they reduced me to, those ‘people in white coats…’ True, they helped me back on my feet afterwards—they put me in Pokrovskoye-Glebovo, a hospital unique to the whole country, where they treat the patients as lawful subjects. There you could wander about without supervision, and swallow their powders without having them forced down your throat; and it was even possible to get leave to go into the town—they gave you something like a medical certificate, allowing you to go out for the purpose of receiving or paying rent, for example. For tobacco and sugar I crept out through a hole in the fence and returned the same way. The treatment I received was terrible—insulin; but I could not protest, all I could do was to hope… When I recovered from the shock, I thought I was dying. But I was happy that in the end I had survived. ‘Comrade Stalin, let me to go back home’, as a Catholic priest in the camp begged as he lay dying on his plank bed… But I was thinking that I would be happy even if I had to die in this prison-hospital. On the first day of Easter in ’seventy-one they arrested me outside Yakir’s house and held me at the militia department for the whole night; but the only reference in my notebook is an entry along the lines of: ‘I am alone floating on a block of ice and I am scared for myself’. It was probably just a formality, it seemed trivial—neither samizdat nor leaflets were involved— but, in addition, for a whole hour I refused to tell them who I was—the situation became more and more comical: somehow or other they had to explain why they had arrested me. In the end they made up their minds: ‘He was staggering about, and calling us gendarmes’. I did call out some insults, but by then I was already being pushed into a militia car. But where it suits their interests they can swap cause and effect—and in this case the effect would not let them down… I am happy that, in spite of a disorderly life, I staggered close to history—although not in one of its brightest periods. I am happy that I knew Yakir, that I am a friend of the Grigorenkos, that I was on good terms with Khaustov and Vera Lashkova. Even if I was deprived of the

Part 3

223

chance to continue acting on the stage, at least such people as Bukovsky and Sakharov thought highly of me as an actor. Sakharov heard me when we had a meeting with Grigorenko ‘after his long separation from us’ (that was just before he was deported after suffering for years in a psychiatric hospital). Now it doesn’t seem to me that I am alone on the ice floe or that I am afraid any more. ‘Yes, you are sick; and all these people like Yakir are making use of your sickness quite pointlessly,’ said Eda. But how can you think of yourself as being cured when you are liable to be ‘hospitalised’ on the fiftieth anniversary of the October revolution, or on the day they move our forces into Czechoslovakia, or on the fiftieth anniversary of the October revolution? On Ilich’s hundredth birthday—‘Lukich’s’ birthday, as ordinary people say—I’ve already been visited twice by people from the local health centre: ‘Don’t you want to get some treatment?’ Certainly not; however much you, as a matter of correct routine, might be asking about ‘voices in my head’ or the strange things I may have seen. But they will still say: ‘Aren’t you ready to undertake something for the ninth of May?’ Eda did not like what we had to say about psychiatrists—she was offended on behalf of the medical fraternity. ‘It’s pointless pouring scorn on the doctors—the KGB is trying to cure you.’ The psychiatrist Yevmenov came out with an observation along the lines of: ‘Vladimir Nikolaevich, do you really think that the Serbsky, Lunts that is, would admit that you are of sound mind? No, of course not: you would still be there in two or three years’ time, or even longer; but with us, at the Pokrovskoye-Glebovo we can do this for you in a month…’ And surely he was right—as far as they could, they were defending me. In the old days I used to mark the Jubilee by eating special toffee at home; but at least I can say now that for the past two years, if you don’t count a heart attack, I have not been in hospital. There were people, sympathetic at the time, who wouldn’t leave me alone, but it was all to no purpose. I was so over-medicated that for a whole year after Kashchenko I didn’t tune into London, made no entries in my diary, read nothing, didn’t even answer the phone. For long I phoned nobody, they’ve been knocking on my door, I’ve been trying to look through closed windows— Only the ash tree used to creak, as the floorboards are creaking, My eye-windows are papered over with newspaper— wrote Natasha Gevondiants.

224

Part 3

I liked the bit about newspaper—our whole lives are pasted up with newspapers. But it turned out that this was not just an epithet or a metaphor (I never learned to distinguish one from the other) but reality, the poet really did paste newspaper on the windows—to keep out the sun’s glare. When my great-great-grandfather was eleven years old, by the wish of his feudal lord Tsar Aleksandr Nikolaevich, he ceased being a serf. But we are still unable get used to the idea of people being free, as they go on shoving into our mouths copies of the April Theses and Pravda; year after year; from morning to night, we chew on them, and white light has turned to dark… ‘Take me to your place to work’, I had asked Skobelev. And I wasn’t joking. Here is Semichastny, almost weeping, they say, because he complains: there isn’t time to read a real book. But to whom would you allocate such work? The danger is that if you sit a Soviet person down, as a censor, to read dissident literature he will be corrupted. But this would hardly apply to me. In the performance of my official duties I would study all the works of Koestler or Orwell, organise card indexes, compile annotations… ‘You like writing,’ Skobelev said gloomily, ‘so write something about the theatre. Something about Sumarokov for example…’ Why Sumarokov, and not Kheraskov or Kapnist? On the holiday celebrating the first of May Natasha Gevondiants took me to Leningrad; it was my first visit. The ballet master Yankin accompanied us. ‘Natasha, aren’t you tired of going around with a corpse like me?’ I asked, in his presence. Crowds of people scurried about the grey city with vacant expressions, just like mine… On the walls they looked up to portraits decorated with the stars of heroes: What are Sparta and Troy to us— Brezhnev and Kosygin are our real heroes. ‘Oh, my God, that’s right, they are the real heroes!’ Natasha suddenly proclaimed. I once dreamt that I was wandering among the streets, where I knew Zhelyabov in the company of fellow Menshevik Perovskaya were also walking. I intended to find the place where Lenin was hiding from Nadezhda Konstantinova; and to visit the cemetery in which Peter the Great and Rimsky Korsakov are buried. But now, in my present state of mind, I was completely indifferent to such ideas… We found that Plekhanov’s grave had been flung about, the pedestal had fallen; while the graves of the Ulyanovs were still in their full splendour— ‘governmental interment’. In the Peterhof Palace, in the bedroom of the

Part 3

225

empress, there was a bust of Lenin. Yekaterina II was, as it were, contemplating the future leader… The Shlisselburg fort was closed for repairs. We visited Gatchina—in the palace there is some kind of factory; but we admired the green statue of Paul—then we went back to the city. In the Field of Mars we saw the eternal flame (at that time the idea had not been introduced to other cities) also the grave of a certain comrade Tsiperovich. Even persistent Natasha had not succeeded in discovering who he was. We walked through the Summer Garden, and looked at the one-time hotel ‘Angleter’, although they would not allow us into room number five. Leningrad is full of Finns, even schoolchildren—they can come here without visas, take a rest from the dry laws of their country, and leave us their currency. We also went into the monastery of Alexander Nevsky, where, next to the grave of Gnedich, is that of a Petersburg second hand bookseller. He had purchased it for himself ten years before his death and affixed a plaque with the inscription: Passer by! With brave steps I am walking here among the coffins. You’ll understand this hint… Until we meet! Goodbye, friend! For ten years he feasted his eyes on his own tomb and boldly strode among the coffins. We went to see Tovstonogov’s production of Griboedov’s play ‘The Distress of Cleverness’. There are coffins in that as well, but it’s not worth a journey to Leningrad to see it. Yursky played the defenceless, neurasthenic Chatsky. Lavrov-Molchalin, a solid, progressive, comrade—doesn’t make a fuss and believes in tomorrow: the future is his. When Famusov cries out evilly: ‘Apart from Moscow, there is another capital, you know!’ the Leningraders burst out in applause. This rapture was incomprehensible to outsiders like us. Suddenly at one point in the play Yursky hoarsely whispers: ‘Get me a carriage, a carriage…’, then, in a fainting fit, falls backwards, crashes to the stage and hits his head. I envied his technique: this was not a Moscow Arts Theatre ‘natural event’, this was the honed professionalism of Meyerholt. By the end of the play I was so exhausted by all its digressions that I ceased to believe in them—this was certainly not a Chekhov, nor a Gorky play, where a discretionary placing of stress can change meaning… What, for example, does the image of Repetilov imply? In Griboedov’s time, probably, they also gave out subtle hints. And if you think about this enthusiastic prattler, what is Griboedov, the secret advisor to the Tsarist government, hinting at when he describes how those Decembrist officers, having taken a sip of punch, go out onto Senate Square just to make a noise? Surely what

226

Part 3

Griboedov is hinting at is his own commanding view of events. In our present-day conditions people don’t freely talk in large groups, except perhaps for neurasthenics and schizophrenics and those few who really want to stay in prison—and we shouldn’t be poking fun at those who are so disadvantaged. After Leningrad I went on a trip to Tula, stayed at Yasnaya Poliana, and wrote a sketch—my recovery had begun. 91. IN THE HOMELAND OF A GREAT WRITER The agitprop leader in Shchekinsky region was interested in only one thing, Allilueva: ‘Why is it that you Muscovites seem so indifferent to Svetlana?’ The retired airman led the cultural activities of the district executive committee. For three years he had been on a pension and he was bored. ‘All I’ve had to do is go to Party meetings… Well, it’s the district committee; they just tell me whatever comes into their heads: I must go there, check up on everybody, stir things up a bit and prepare some material… I ought to get back to repairing a little dacha out in the country. It’s a long way to get water, even further to get firewood; then when a snowstorm blows up, you don’t want to put your nose out of the door… I let my sister use it, and she gives me a little bit of money. She’s got another property, but that’s in a very bad state… ‘I haven’t done any flying over the last few years because of ill-health, then Khrushchev got it into his head to cut the size of the army. I qualified for a pension; but, for various reasons, after finishing work I had to wait a couple of months to get it—and I needed it desperately… Stalin, you can kill me straight away if I’m wrong, but to let this happen in peacetime!… I don’t have any specialist skills, and I can’t survive without work. They suggested some sort of occupation in general management—so I became a cultural manager. It’s not an easy business—everything is left to you, you have to get everything in, there are no chairs, they steal the inventory, they steal the books, the technical equipment, they even start to complain about you to the district committee. Then the regional committee—they force us to study; I read an article about monopolistic capitalism; the instructor said: read it through…’ The former airman looked at us helplessly, he couldn’t tell us anything about monopolistic capitalism. To make up for it he expounded exhaustively on the subject of how to assist the director of the district library, and on the problem of Solzhenitsyn. On the latter topic it seemed as though official instruction was falling on fertile soil. ‘Solzhenitsyn is a very ordinary individual. My friend served with him in the artillery—he didn’t really stand out. Now they’ve made him out to be a

Part 3

227

great writer! They put him in prison at the end of the war for some kind of shady dealings, but now he has attracted a cult following. What kind of cult can you be in after a war? Diakov writes well, but as for this one… His latest stories are pitiful… The cult of personality, of course, did exist, nobody can argue about that…’ Then he told the story of his friend Yuri Shitov: ‘In the dangerous days of 1942, flying over Sukhumi beach on a low-level sortie, he fired at several bathers: ‘What’s this, bathing, when there’s a war on!’ Back at the airfield he was summoned to a tribunal—about the shooting. Afterwards they sent him away for twenty-five years—or maybe it was ten, I don’t remember; they tortured him in a prison in Tbilisi—where there was the same kind of treatment for everyone; the Germans were close. Then it got to be the time when people were dying from hunger. They lead him out behind the walls, gave him a kick up the backside—now go away and die behind the fence. Like Aleksei Meresiev, he began to feed on grass, and leaves, and garbage from dustbins. He somehow managed to creep back to his old airbase, and there his comrades fed him for more than a month without anybody noticing. He was ravenous, so he just went on eating, eating, eating… Later the authorities got wind of him, and there he was! The devil take him, let him do something useful, they said, so they got him back into the ranks! Now he is living in Yevpatoria in a two-roomed flat, his wife has died of cancer; she might have been ten years younger than him. His daughter is still with him, eighteen years old… The cult of personality, of course, went on existing… You’d expect it to in Yasnaya Poliana of all places! ‘Shchegoleva’s husbands both worked at Yasnaya Poliana, but they stayed behind when the Germans overran it; on their knees they begged them not to touch the sacred national shrine. Then after the war Shchegoleva organised an exhibition ‘Tolstoy and his children’. Visitors came from all over the oblast: ‘Why isn’t there a portrait of Stalin?’—‘But why should there be one of Stalin?’ Then one night they took her away; and up to now nobody knows what happened to her. There certainly was a cult, but there was no need for Nikita to cause trouble by stirring up all this dirt—and now there’s so much anti-Soviet writing all over the place. It’s a good job there are no private printing presses. But they do broadcast these criminal songs on the airwaves—the youth of today has got completely out of hand… And why did Israel come out victorious? When did the Jews go to war? The fact of the matter is that the Jews have technical ability, while the Arabs only have camels…’ (I even had to listen to this kind of explanation: ‘Are the Jews really fighting? Aren’t ex-SS and ex-Vlasov’s people in their pay, and doing their dirty work…?’) ‘Now Svetlana is good—even if people do want to spit on her face, does that mean she’s got to leave her motherland? And fly to the most reactionary country on earth? And then to bring some kind god into the argument? She

228

Part 3

has gone clean out of her mind! If her son grows up and he turns out to be clever, he should deny that she is his mother. She didn’t have any regrets about her children! Who was her first husband? Yuri Zhdanov? Sholokhov rightly said: ‘deserter Allilueva’. Clever chap, he’s not afraid of anything! ‘And what sort of books do they read nowadays? All about spies and love. They steal Maupassant from the library, in medical books they cut out the sexual organs, in technical books—diagrams of radio receivers. The police don’t do anything. ‘Somebody has stolen a book? Well, that’s good, it shows that somebody must be reading it. And he’ll give it to someone else to read.’ They steal technical books from the clubs; but these thieves don’t come from our locality, they come from the city. And it’s the radio that transmits these criminal songs. They are ready to filch everything that comes to hand, any piece of metal just so they can put a radio together… No, we must do something about it—we were baptised with fire in sixty two, now we’ve got to do something!… But what has the government been thinking about? Why has it allowed this to happen?’ A young cultural adviser works with the ex-aviator: ‘You’ve got to know what kind of books to give to machine operators, or dairy workers, or people working in the fields. And visual propaganda— exhibitions—are certainly valuable. But you have really got to work with the readers themselves.’ On learning that they still lay flowers on Stalin’s grave, the lover of visual propaganda suddenly became animated: ‘Yes, that’s just what I should be doing.’ At Yasnaya Poliana all the fruit trees perished, and, in the forest preserve itself, all the conifers as well. It was all the result of Shchekinsky’s special chemical treatment. But it’s not just trees, many people are dying, between the ages of thirty and forty… I was also permanently disabled by some chemical that was shoved into me at Kashchenko. I tried to keep myself occupied. When I was in ZNUI I tried to get a job in the library, but without success; or to read to the blind, but that didn’t work out either. It’s not clever to be always going back to the same old place—I used to fall asleep at my desk. Now I am in the second level of invalidity, and I receive benefit payments. A local doctor asked me: ‘Do you have any medical complaints?’ ‘No, I don’t have any complaints…’ ‘So, what is the matter?’ The medical sister, standing at the window, explained: ‘He is on the list for the Leningrad psychiatric hospital…’ ‘Aha-a’

Part 3

229

My wasted condition maddened Natasha Gevondiants. In the end she was able to get me into the scientific-method office of the cultural-educational department, an establishment concerning itself with club affairs; but after only a few months the director Vladimirov was already cursing her on the phone: ‘Who have you palmed off on us? He is completely crazy!’ ‘That’s not true; I have been on cultural missions with him on several occasions, and he is an entirely rational person.’ ‘Oh no, better to think of him as a lunatic … No, more like a revolutionary. He shouldn’t be allowed to go on such missions…’ ‘I never noticed anything…’ ‘So you didn’t even notice it…’ Nor did I recall any impetuous behaviour on my part. Before my ‘treatment’ at Kashchenko I could still drop off my not-so-valuable ‘Samizdat’ material somewhere in a hotel, club or railway station. But my typewriter could only make four copies, and in general I doubt if this kind of activity of mine figured in my dossier. But this dossier certainly would have been augmented by intercepting my correspondence with the geologist Erik Makhnovetsky. He was working at the time as a chauffeur at a fuel oil centre, but not concerned with anything of wider significance. However, they searched his flat; and later convened a ‘comrades’ court’. Having concluded that he, poor devil, had fallen under the influence of a spiritually sick person, they decided to limit themselves for the time being to educational measures. But they reminded him of the existence of prisons. The director of the oil centre went on about what happened in ’thirty-seven, but they began to hiss at him in the court. They accused Erik only on the basis of some personal jottings of his, and my letters to him. On the street I happened to bump into a one-time clerk at ZNUI, Kolya Syreishchikov. We both loved to get into deep philosophical discussions over a drink, and he lived alone not far away. But now, receiving 120 roubles instead of a previous 60, Kolya had become more pro-government. When I told him about how they were ‘treating’ me, he rejoined: ‘Well, what of it? They went on paying you even when you had a medical certificate. On the whole I think they should put people like Daniel in prison—what do they want to do, knock the wall down between the East and the West?’ ‘Do you like this regime?’ ‘Where else would I still be getting 120 roubles for doing nothing?’ ‘Then let them open the borders for those who don’t want to be idle!’

230

Part 3

‘Personally, I’m not going anywhere—I’m at home here.’ (It looks as though he’s managing a fake archive, just like Prokopenko; he must also be from the historic-archival department. The same as Yakir, unfortunately.) A neighbour and childhood friend, Yura Andreev did not please me with this joke: ‘Shame, shame—they have put two Jews in prison; as a result there was a huge fuss!’ ‘Why two? Sinyavsky, he’s Russian.’ ‘It makes no difference—they’re in the same gang…’ Yura—in aircraft construction, owns a car, and is well fed. He says that to be completely happy having two lovers is still not enough. But it was not just for that I remember him… 92. I LOVE YOU In August of ’sixty seven I was so out of spirits that I went to Khimki to swim and to keep my eye open on the beach for a wife—and a very beautiful woman from Kiev materialised. She was an outstanding housewife, and we lived together as soul mates for two years—until she went off with Slavka Repnikov, who was younger than me, and who had just returned from his ten-year sentence. I was not especially devastated by this change; I had fallen for somebody else. This woman had a young husband, whom she had long been thinking of giving up. During the following two years I spent a lot of time in Yakir’s house, quite often spending the night there and helping him as much as I could… All of my three wives abandoned my family name; otherwise I might have been immortalised, if not in my children, at least in my partners. Apart from her interesting appearance, fair hair and a posterior that defied description, Galya possessed a folding bed and a suitcase. In her passport it was noted: ‘Nationality unknown’. Police departments had for a long time taken a dim view of this entry: ‘Idiots! What’s preventing a young girl from assuming whatever nationality she likes?’ She did not have an employment record either. And her back was decorated with a deep scar resulting from a hunting-knife wound. Maybe her origins lay in the criminal fraternity; but I never took it upon myself to have this confirmed—any simple Russian has an inherently criminal streak. ‘Why do you knock me about, you useless person,’ Galya used to say. Or: ‘Just remember, I was never a whore.’ But this didn’t bother me—she was such a thrifty needlewoman, dressmaker, the mistress of so many skills. I bought for her with the last of

Part 3

231

mama’s money a Japanese ‘Silver’ transistor. I still don’t know anything of her past, the whole of her life’s experience she kept to herself—she was not inclined towards spiritual striptease. However, once, when she was drunk, she came out with a strange phrase (the occasion was an out-of-town picnic, far from Moscow. I don’t remember the place; the only thing I noticed was that the writer Boborykin, well known at one time, was buried there): ‘Go away, all of you! I shall stay here by myself, alone with nature! I am going to find a nice man for myself… What do you think? Somebody who is alone, like me.’ (In terms of warmth of affection, her father had not been especially generous towards her…) She had to work in a factory, where she was a waitress in the canteen and a cashier in the shop. On the first evening of our living together, she came out with some phrases she had picked up from the Party organisation at the factory: she told me that ‘there are Jews who write untruths, and who go off abroad. In Kiev Jews live separately from everybody else. Curse the Jews! They are always ready to sell out their country! How I hate them!’ I kept discretely silent. And subsequently I never brought pressure to bear on her. Not noticing who they were, she became friendly with all my Jewish friends, even with Karl Shneiderman, an archetypal Jew. She tenderly embraced him and kept saying: ‘This is my dear father…’ From her I learned that Shtepsel and Tarapunka sang duets. Galya switched on the radio: Shulzhenko (the female classical singer) and Raikina (the Jewish comedienne) were singing, and Galya joined in; although they don’t broadcast the kind of songs she normally likes to sing. She was well acquainted with foreign culture: she imitated the Polish singer Edita Piekha, crooned ‘Little Red Rose’; and once, when I was having a bath, rushed in with the joyous cry: ‘Volodia! Dzhorzhi Marianovich has come to do a concert!’ She brought with her about a hundred postcards with the portraits of artists, and also some merchandise—decorated with little hearts and kissable turtle doves. You have so many friends, And I am there among them. But do believe me, Nobody loves you more than I! After a year no trace remained of this sort of thing. She even stopped seeing Mishenka Kuznetsov and Nikolai Tikhonov in her dreams. She told me about one of them: ‘I dreamt that we had a gang… well, a group… well not exactly that; what can you call it… a company, perhaps…’ ‘Organisation?’

232

Part 3

‘Yes, exactly! And they are giving me a note, or, rather, a letter. A woman kept following me, but I handed the letter over to her, although she wanted to seduce me… That’s what it is—you are listening to me too much—that’s why I get these terrible dreams…’ She avidly read through ‘A New Book about Marriage’ by Noibert. ‘I didn’t think that such books existed.’ I must admit that, ten years earlier, no-one would have suspected that such a book existed, still less that it would run to fifteen editions in the fraternal GDR. During the time while we were married I became convinced of the truth of the saying: ‘The higher the level of civilisation, the lower the kisses.’ Galya preferred to switch off the light for anything like that: ‘I’m embarrassed…’ Generally she thought that games of foreplay were pointless. Well, she would allow a whispered joke, one of the old ones about famous people—the kind I used to hear in pioneer camp about thirty years ago… Barbarisms, of the kind where letters are changed in the spelling of common words have steadily gone out of the language, but one that has for long remained is the amusing combination of Pasteur and sterilisation: ‘pasterilised milk’. In the militia department, and later in Kashchenko, they tried to persuade her to ‘leave Gusarov in peace, he is a sick person; we will find someone to look after him ourselves’.—‘Sick? I never noticed this…’—‘And you will not notice it—he has a very subtle illness.’ Telling me about this, Galka added energetically: ‘They are looking for someone even barmier than themselves!’ 93. AT THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE Of course, the institute of Marxism-Leninism and similar organisations of agitation and propaganda don’t produce material profit of any kind, although ‘scientific workers’ employed there at various levels are reckoned to be in the hundreds if not thousands. But the government has to fill an ideological void, and this is what they are diligently trying to do… The purpose is to subvert, at all cost, people’s belief in God. So there is this vast establishment monotonously demonstrating that there is no God, just as the party tirelessly teaches us that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, or that there are 90 degrees in a right angle… Clubs are supposed to be provided with ‘scientific’ programmes of development, but this does not happen in reality—there are premises at a hundred, two hundred, even five hundred locations where party, industrial, trade union and similar meetings and informal gatherings take place. In a military club work proceeds, of course, in accordance with a compulsory agenda; but

Part 3

233

every civil organisation, small or large, has its own particular conclave devoted to the ‘scientific-method’. What influences the operation of such a club in a rural settlement? A club director wouldn’t dare to disregard the pronouncements coming from the chairman of a collective farm, or from the director of a government farm, or from the chairman of an ispolkom. Apart from these authorities, there are also similarly powerful organisations for films, touring theatres, symphony orchestras, and societies for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge—all these can be regarded as the suppliers of ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Scientific atheism’. And each of them has its own plan, and each ‘knows best’ the needs of the peasant. It is left to the club workers to employ and renew their material resources and organise social events accordingly—essential for ensuring that young people start out in life following the ‘correct line’. The programme ‘Soviet Culture and Knowledge’ is a fossil surviving from the twenties, a time when there were illiterate peasants wanting to know why there were still such things as lightning and thunder, if there was no pagan god to hand. The club was invoked as an influence opposed to the church, which was still very much alive. Literate people were under an obligation to read a prescribed number of pages to the illiterate. Many people were forced to attend the village library or the club. But Nadezhda Krupskaya had by then noticed that high spirits and a more relaxed atmosphere were more in evidence in communal housing than in the clubs, where workers’ initiative had been taken away. What can be said about the thirties, the forties and other years, when everything became so highly organised that ordinary people just lost their spontaneity? At the present time organisations are huge, and are still growing; but when, in Novosibirsk Academic City, they wanted to organise a club for themselves, not conforming to the system and the budget, the innovators immediately ran into a thousand insurmountable obstacles, although they were not planning to take a single kopek of government money. They did not have the right to do anything: either to share their experiences, or get together to buy something. It proved impossible even to open a buffet—and a non-alcoholic one at that! A member of the club committee—Makarenko—is still serving a prison sentence for organising unauthorised exhibitions, which led to the horrors of a visit by a government committee… So now, after my ‘treatment’, I am faced with the prospect of vegetating in this ancient alms-house—my role being to elaborate guiding principles in planning the activities of a club, where I know my services are needed by no one. I was surprised to discover that those supervising this ‘outpost of knowledge’ included university readers, a professor and a doctor of science. In the future perhaps even academicians will make their appearance—apparently there is a shortage of club committees at all levels: union, republic, oblast

234

Part 3

and district—that is why they created the Scientific Research Institute of Culture. Guilty is the person who has nobody to suck up to… see if they don’t found an Academy for Club Affairs before long. The single thing that consoles me is that outside Russia small or smallish republics use ‘scientific-method committees’ and Houses of People’s Art more fruitfully. In Russia V. D. Polenov, a great pre-Revolutionary Russian artist, created one such superior house, which therefore now bears the name Krupskaya… Polenov collected decorated peasant shoes made of tree bark, finely crafted beech wood boxes, embroidered towels, home-made icons and examples of people’s simple prints. And what is the product of this movement today? Files, files, files—just as we have in the Central NMK. And we have acquired, praise God, ‘the holiday of the first furrow’; but these don’t relate in any way to people’s art. And there’s nothing new in all these newfangled holidays—they are all pilfered from the calendar of our hated religion. The solemn registration of a child’s birth—isn’t this christening by another name? Admittedly they don’t use water, but you cannot avoid the smell of politics … In our age of jazz and transistors, learning the balalaika and accordion are not prioritised: they no longer belong to the people, but are seen as some kind of ethnographic phenomenon. More than once have I heard a recording of Vysotsky’s deep anarchic voice coming from a peasant’s hut; while outside old men wrangle over who has the sharpest bite among critics of the regime such as V. Frantsuzov or A. M. Goldberg. On the Rogochevsky government farm they have installed a radio and a television set in the building set aside for ministry workers. Without forcing my ideas on these people, I have been getting them used to listening to the BBC and even Radio Free Europe—jamming did not affect the Dmitrovsky region. I suspected that these small fry from the Ministry of Culture were themselves listening to ‘non-recommended broadcasts’: one even told me a joke about Father Vladimir: ‘Father Vladimir used to come to New York; reporters discovered him, and they asked him, what is your attitude to the existence here of brothels? Father Vladimir was distressed: ‘Do they really still exist?’ The next day the following item appeared in one of the papers: ‘Hardly before stepping off the plane, father Vladimir expressed interest in the possible existence of brothels in New York.’ Our party organiser quipped, with some erudition: ‘What kind of commentator was that? They must have got hold of a Viktor Frantsuzov. ‘Why do writers send their manuscripts abroad? So that we, without the help of the Federal Republic of Germany, cannot read Yevtushenko’s autobiography? I don’t understand…’ But now they have repaired the television set, and all eyes are fixed on the screen to watch not only football and hockey, but also films on the most

Part 3

235

sickening historical-revolutionary themes—and they cannot tear themselves away. Meanwhile both Father Vladimir and Goldberg are forgotten… In a production of the ‘Three Sisters’ there is a scandal concerning the Jewish director Efros. Many people leave straight away. About to step out on the stage Seriozha Shtein muttered: ‘They’ve begun to exit the sinking ship…’ Zhenia Doronina sat through to the end, but her face expressed bewilderment. About a third of the hall, including myself, applauded with an unseemly degree of enthusiasm. The jaundiced Moscow Arts director Yeremeev asks loudly: ‘Why is it with Chekhov that it’s always the Jews who settle the score?’ Quite by accident, several sections from my notes that had somehow eluded the Lubyanka were in Seriozha’s possession. This is one of them: 94. AESOP AND THE GPU (STATE POLITICAL ADMINISTRATION) I heard this story for the first time from the actor-drunkard Misha Vorobiov. Most of his anecdotes typically began with: ‘The world had never before seen a bastard like him…’ Then a friend of Nikolai Erdman, author of ‘Mandate’, much talked about at one time, and of a genial, but failed, play ‘Suicide’, also told it to me. In the over-praised Yezhov years Erdman himself wrote no plays, only indulging in satirical anecdotes, in the Aesop style, which he told to a small circle of friends. The dearest and most intelligent Vasili Ivanovich Kachalov denounced him. At a certain government banquet, in the presence of Stalin, Yezhov, Molotov and all the rest, Kachalov, being already slightly drunk, told a good many stories connected with vaudeville and the circus in preRevolutionary times. He recounted ‘Durov’s reply’—Durov throws a coin bearing the head of Nicholas II; and to the question: ‘What are you doing?’ he answers: ‘I am playing the fool’. And then in Odessa this same Durov went out into the arena, sitting on a green pig—in the presence of the governor, whose family name just happened to be Green. Some of Stalin’s associates, also a bit worse for wear, demanded: ‘Let’s have some more!’ Well, he related the repartee of Bim and Bom (this was after the revolution): ‘Bim, why have you got a tail?’ ‘I am a bull.’ ‘And where is your hide?’ ‘I handed it in to the government department in charge of skins.’ ‘And the meat?’ ‘I handed it in to the government department in charge of meat.’

236

Part 3

‘Why didn’t you give away your tail?’ ‘Trotsky didn’t plan a department for dealing with tails.’ Somebody asked: ‘Vasili Ivanovich, aren’t there some contemporary jokes just as good as the old ones?’ The highly intelligent Kachalov became confused. ‘Well, there are good modern authors and some good modern jokes…But I feel that I cannot tell them here …’ After an assurance that ‘in our circle it is allowed’. Kachalov told a few jokes, the kind that go: ‘It’s impossible to quarrel with Stalin—you quote something to him, and he will send you into exile’, and later recited some of Erdman’s fables, and even named the author: God sent a crow a little piece of cheese… ‘But, God doesn’t exist!’ ‘Reader, you are too pedantic! There can’t be any cheese if God doesn’t exist.’ Kachalov might have suggested that they would come for Erdman the following night… They say that in the interrogation cell he composed his last verse: The GPU came to Aesop one time To grab him by the arse! The thought is clear, behind this rhyme: It’s pointless, all this verse! 95. A PAGE FROM MY DIARY 1968 On the nineteenth of August I arrived by appointment at the psychiatric department of the local health centre. Boris Sergeevich Yevmenov, the district psychiatrist, tells me: ‘Choose for yourself—we cannot defend you anymore. If we answer: ‘He doesn’t require hospitalisation’, they will send you, via the Serbsky, to Leningrad for two or three years, while here at Kashchenko you will get off with a month.’ ‘Fine. Only first let me see off my wife, she is going on a boat trip on Wednesday evening—I’ll take her to the boat and then come here…’ ‘Where is she going?’ ‘To Astrakhan and back. On the steamer Klara Tsetkin.’ ‘Then come on Thursday. Before two.’

Part 3

237

On Wednesday I woke up at half past six and switched on the transistor radio: ‘Soviet forces, together with the forces of our satellites, have entered Czechoslovakian territory. They have been ordered not to become involved in aggressive acts…’ Jamming blotted out the rest of the bulletin; unfortunately the Japanese transistor was not receiving anything on the other frequencies: thirteen, sixteen or nineteen! I was too agitated to switch it off, I just folded down the aerial. I brought it into the house, I wanted to hide it in my sofa-bed; but I was afraid that the sound would carry, so I put it on top of the sideboard. Then I tore up some papers, and began a letter to Larisa Bogoraz—it described how they began to argue with me over my ‘treatment’… Black Wednesday had begun, the twenty first of August. Grishin: ‘Take heart, Volodia!’ ‘I am taking heart; but if they start giving me more jabs for any reason… This time they might give me an injection in the back of my head…’ ‘Yes, yes…’ When I arrived to ‘go into hiding’, I even mentioned what I had said about the back of my head to Yevmenov. This animated him. ‘Do you give me permission to write down what you are telling me?’ ‘Go ahead…’ He needed evidence that the need to treat this sick person was not on the basis of orders from above, but was established by my actual state of mind. Outside in the street many people had been standing around the kiosks, all of them elderly. One old man was yelling: ‘What’s all this fuss about Czechoslovakia? I went through the German war and the civil war!’ ‘What were you fighting for in the civil war?’ I ask him, trying to suppress my anger. ‘For the power of the Soviets!’ parroted the old fool. ‘But what about going into Germany? Against our own brother workers?’ But this was obviously too complicated for him. ‘Give an order to a Russian—he’ll strangle his own mother, if that is what his motherland has told him to do!’ Nobody answered me. I left as soon as I could. Later on I bought a newspaper. Several times I read: ‘to help the Czechoslovak people… at the request of the leadership of the Party… they have destroyed the constitution… faithful to inter-allied obligations…’ I remembered a drunk I had seen in the metro several weeks ago:

238

Part 3

‘The Czechs have shamed us with their success… shamed us… With people like general Rokossovsky there’s no end to what we could have done… They were right to bury him with honours—it’s what he deserved…’ A month earlier somebody in civilian clothes came to see our director. The discussion in his office did not go on for very long. They summoned one of the young staff members, Ludmila Kirenkova. ‘What kind of relationship do you have with Gusarov?’ ‘The very best. He helps me with my studies…’ ‘But how is it possible? He has a wife, you are also married. So how can it be like that?’ Ludmila began to cry and asked that no one should interfere in her private life. When the moralist in the civilian suit had gone, she and the director Yevgeny Alekseevich remained seated in the little office—the little office which he and his young colleagues were in the habit of making special use of (and his wife more than once wrote a letter complaining to the ministry about his own special use of it; now they are divorced with two children). He looked with screwed-up eyes at this friend of his current lover, and in a strained voice asked: ‘Don’t be looking in that direction, Ludmila… What can he teach you— how to play chess?…’ It has to be said, that, although we have now been married three years, I have not succeeded in teaching Ludmila how to play chess. We were together during those first Czechoslovak August nights, not lighting a flame, not answering the doorbell or the telephone. We lay, pressed against each other; but neither during the day nor during the night did anything happen that might normally be expected to happen between a man and a woman. But we so looked forward to those fleeting hours… Ludmila was certainly not one of those women for whom only spiritual communication was important; but I knew why I lacked potency, and felt no shame, when I pressed myself ‘fraternally’ against this desirable woman… In Kashchenko some fat oaf enraged me—I had said a few unpleasant things about him in stronger language than anything you would hear on ‘Radio Free Europe’: ‘Fascist scum! Aggressors!!’ But having provoked me to bad mouth him, he seemed to forget what I had just said and suddenly asked: ‘Do you know Spanish?’ Soviet people feel no shame—nothing depends on them, so their conscience is clear. True, another, older man, a sedate amateur artist, when we were left alone together, said: ‘The situation in Czechoslovakia gives me a very unpleasant feeling… Is our government trying to stifle them? It means they don’t trust their own

Part 3

239

people… What they want is that there should be the same ‘demonstrations’ and ‘elections’ in Czechoslovakia as there are here. It’s camouflage… You are right… People in Czechoslovakia are not defending socialism, they are defending something completely different… But even here, in this madhouse, they are also afraid! Here, as everywhere else. An unhappy, dishevelled, postman called Shelomov, worn down by his family, saw that I was writing something, came up to me and whispered: ‘Remember, nobody anywhere loves their chekist brother, I am telling you the exact truth!’ and with tears in his eyes he began to tell me how he had just come across glass in a piece of cake, and a cigarette end in a bread roll… On the twenty eighth of the month doctor Dina Yakovlevna challenged me: ‘Is it true that Larisa Daniel has been arrested?’ ‘You are asking me? You are the one who is free, not I.’ She asked me to tell her the story of ‘Cancer Ward’. 96. PAGES FROM MY DIARY 13.XI.68. I dropped in on the Turkinshteins, and it was there that I heard about the death of A. E. Kosterin. This event prompted them to direct me to the house of General Grigorenko. On the first day I called the head of the household was not at home; I spoke with his wife Zina Mikhailovna. ‘Is anybody truly happy in our family? You only read about that kind of thing in Chernyshevsky’s books—it’s not like that in real life…’ she mused. When they opened the door to me on the second day a white-haired, clumsy, giant of a man was standing at the telephone. He saw me, and spoke with a deep voice into the receiver: ‘Some kind of renegade has just arrived…’ Until the time of the funeral itself—it was a mournful gathering—Grigorenko went about looking flabby, unkempt; wearing a sleeveless, openweave vest with dangling braces. But now he slowly got into some proper clothes. Not a vestige of unease, or nervous tension. An old fashioned overcoat, a crumpled hat; the face of a Dnieper Cossack. Zinaida Mikhailovna’s first husband was the handsome professor Vissarion Kolokolkin; once he had collided head-on with Stalin at one of Kuibyshev’s receptions. ‘Iosif Vissarionovich,’ ‘Pravdu’ began to take him rudely into his arms. ‘I am convinced that you yourself don’t like all these eulogies that Mekhlis showers on you.’

240

Part 3

Stalin said nothing—just looked. For a whole year afterwards the Siberian Kolokolkin had dreams about the eyes of a murderer. Waking up, he would whisper: ‘In his eyes I saw my death…’ In ’38 Vissarion was tortured in Lefortovo. Zina Mikhailovna herself survived by a miracle—Stalin’s favourite writer P-ov happened to ask after her. They had a son, Alik, who had been struck down with meningitis. Now Alik will soon be forty; but he has the mental development of a ten-year-old, speaks with difficulty, and sits the whole day in front of the television. He loves films about the war, where there are explosions and the rattle of machine guns. He is affable. Remembers everyone. The ‘fall’ of Pyotr Grigorievich Grigorenko began with a speech he made at a Party conference in Frunze Academy, where he was head of the cybernetics faculty. His achievements, disregarding their moral aspects, are thought by many to exceed those of any marshal in the army. Officers and generals applauded Grigorenko, but when the ‘alarm’ sounded, as if to a command from on high, he was ostracised. At first they sent the disgraced general to the Far East; but there he tried to block the preferment of officers’ sons, after which he was arrested and sent to the ‘Bedlam’ of Leningrad’s prisons. After the fall of Khrushchev, a doctor called out to Grigorenko: ‘Pyotr Grigorievich! Which would you prefer: to await mental rehabilitation, or discharge on the basis of your physical state of health?’ ‘Which is closer to home?’ ‘Well, of course, your state of health is closer…’ ‘That’s it then!’ When he was free they offered him a soldier’s pension—a mere twentythree roubles. He and his wife declined this honour; and so the war invalid worked for a year as a freight loader, and then as a foreman in a factory. According to a decision made by some high-level committee Pyotr Grigorenko was finally awarded a pension of one hundred and twenty roubles. The general became involved with the district pensions office: ‘Am I ranked with retired captains or retired majors?’ ‘This is an individual pension, special decision.’ ‘But on the basis of what?’ There was no answer to this question at the pensions office. The birthday of both husband and wife was 16 October. 11.XII.68 Met the ‘contemporary’ artist G.K. in the Metro. ‘The main thing is not to let them get their claws into us…’

Part 3

241

I sent off two telegrams to different addresses: ‘I congratulate you on the fiftieth birthday of a great writer, defender of the motherland’—one to Riazan, by recorded delivery; the other to a newspaper, but without that requirement. (Note that in the diary entries for the year ’68 some information has been added subsequently). 97. IN THE KREMLIN HOSPITAL 23.I.69 A strange kind of vomiting begins in the night, afterwards I go back to sleep. Towards evening I have a pain in my chest. Galya gives me a hot water bottle. Even though I only eat a little oatmeal porridge during the day, I vomit in the evening. Galya goes off to see father. I throw up again at the polyclinic. Unfortunately the Botkinskaya hospital is closed, as it has been put in quarantine for a month. Father made a fuss, and they agreed to take me in tomorrow; but today he came here, and proposed that I be treated at the Kremlin hospital, the Kuntseva, just opened on Otkryti Highway opposite the district heating centre. I am struck by the splendour of the place and by people’s smiles. ‘Where did you get to know Sychiov?’ Father begged me to say nothing about it, not to shame his grey hairs. ‘Do you think my job only consists of holding meetings?’ 5.II. At eleven in the evening pains began in my chest; towards midnight, vomiting. They gave me a hot water bottle, mustard plasters, validol under my tongue; after two in the morning went back to sleep. 7.II. Breakfasts, lunches, suppers—the patient himself decides what he wants to eat: fifty patients and fifty individual orders—there’s not a single Moscow restaurant that could supply such variety. After breakfast I want to take things back to the kitchen, but there are two young girls sitting there, smirking and tittering in my direction… So, what the hell, I waver, and leave them on the table.

242

Part 3

11.II. Every evening the agonising washing out of my stomach. In the mornings they fix up a medicine dropper, and give me glucose intravenously: drip, drip, drip... On television: ‘The return of Maxim’. A poisonous Menshevik—a frivolous Semite in pince-nez. The Bolsheviks are threatened by reprisal... And I used to like this film so much when I was a child! A big Armenian woman Tamara Samsonova asks: ‘Is this Kautsky?’ 14.II. People who are treated in hospitals like this are more than averagely dedicated to Communism; however, there is a strictly applied pecking order that determines the quality of your ward. On each floor there is a de-luxe ward with bath, toilet, television and telephone, with a double bed in walnut—so you can be ill in bed with your wife. It’s considered a minimum standard for a minister, and Kuntseva provides it. What you get in these government clinics is quite different from the provision for ordinary people—there is no wage-levelling here. There is not one Jewish doctor (only consultants). There is only one Jew among the patients, Matvei Abramovich Brodsky. Nobody wants to socialise with him, he is on his own the whole time, although he has his say exactly like the other comrades. He is particularly indignant about the Chinese: ‘What a scandal! Communists against Communists!’ 16.II. The head of the central board of the Ministry of Health: ‘It is on account of Stalin that China has picked a quarrel with Nikita. With very serious consequences. Nikita did the right thing with Beria, but it was completely unnecessary to criticise Stalin. Such a great country, and yet some oaf like Nikita gets to be in charge…’ The deputy minister of culture: ‘I would get rid of the ‘Contemporary’ theatre. They are putting out libellous insults all the time.’ I cautiously raise an objection—‘Bolsheviks’ is a good play. I tell him that, after he was sacked, Khrushchev went to see it it, and it had caused him to regret not having taken the opportunity of rehabilitating Bukharin. ‘Who?’ ‘Bukharin.’ Silence. Not threatening, just empty of meaning. A friend of the devil—but, perhaps he was innocent… How would I know?

Part 3

243

17.II. We play chess with somebody called Nikonov, the head of a central board. But he doesn’t really know how to play. The times have long passed when a Bolshevik from the nomenklatura like Ilin-Zhenevsky, brother of the international-class player Raskolnikov, took part in national championships. Nikonov: ‘A law is needed! A strict law—it should not be permitted to take more than a certain sum from a buyer in the marketplace! Anybody who breaks the law goes to prison!’ 19.II. Tomorrow Professor Savelev—head of surgery in the Second Medical Institute and a first scalpel of the federal socialist republic—is going to operate on me. It was father. The senior doctor in the hospital told me solemnly: ‘You can trust Savelev.’ When I was having my last blood transfusion I overheard one of the nursing sisters happily passing on the information: ‘Girls! Gusarov does not have cancer!’ 25.II. In the morning of the twentieth they took me on a trolley into the operating theatre, I was told not to move; however it was made clear that after the operation I would be transferred to another department; this meant that I would be under the care of another ward sister, so I would have to undress and hand over my clothes. Loaded with drugs, I heard the sister, leaning over me, shout: ‘Vasili Ivanovich! How are you feeling?’ Apparently it’s usual here to call patients by their first name and patronymic, and for the first time in my life the sister deciphered ‘V’ as ‘Vasili’, and ‘N’ she took as an ‘I’. Last thought: ‘Interesting to know what they are going to cut out of me?’ Recovered consciousness towards evening, and asked them to scratch my back; I myself was scratching, and feeling imagined bedsores. Asked them to give me injections to make me sleep, but they didn’t help—I just dozed for three whole days. The doctor-anaesthetist Valentina Gurevna lent me a copy of the journal ‘Problems of Literature’. I asked her: ‘Are you going to Japan? Could you buy me a transistor?’ ‘What a thing to ask for! I can hardly make up my mind about what clothes to buy, let alone a transistor.’

244

Part 3

In the surgical department they again put me in a double ward without oxygen, although there was hardly anyone else there more seriously ill than myself. But here beds are allocated not on the basis of your state of health, but entirely on a table of rank. Those receiving simple medical treatment are usually put into general wards, but they might also find themselves in a surgical ward. On Saturday 22 February Valentina Ivanovna Usik died of intestinal cancer. During the previous two or three weeks they had brought her oxygen cushions, although there are goodness knows how many wards with oxygen outlets at the bedside on both the second and fourth floors; Nikonov, for example, lies in such a ward. On Sundays he reeks of ‘medicines’ that friends bring in black limousines; judging by his flirtatious manner he must be in cahoots with the nursing sisters—he doesn’t need oxygen. Many patients from this hospital undergoing a course of therapy are transferred to one of the sanatoria (but remain on full salary)—a prototype for the Communist future; meanwhile, that’s only for the chosen few. But the hospital personnel know that if something happens to them or to their families they will not end up here. Money will not get you a place, only ‘devotion to the Party’. And some enthusiast from a general ward, a devotee of red and black caviar, having arrived at the hospital by someone’s, not even his family’s, influence, told me with a strident voice that I must have pulled strings to get into the hospital. It was election time. Relying on my difficult circumstances, I felt entitled to exempt myself from election duties. Then I recalled my promise not to shame my father’s grey hairs, and did somehow manage to slip down to the floor below and threw into the ballot box my coloured voting papers. But, returning to my ward, I noticed there was a similar box—for the use of those seriously ill. None of my protestations that I had already fulfilled my civil obligation carried any weight—I was forced to vote there as well! So I had once again to push voting papers into our own special ballot box. And in the evening Galka came and told me that they had talked her into voting on my behalf. So, in spite of my intention of avoiding election duty, I had ‘voted’ three times. There have been a number of occasions in my life when I have taken no part in the elections, and I like to assume this has not damaged a reputation for civic enthusiasm. Yu. Kim, together with his wife, decided ‘not to provoke the authorities’, but to go out and vote. At the polling station, they were joyously assured that they had already voted. At times people take part in this comedy, not only to avoid unpleasantness, but also because they feel sorry for the agitators—they, poor creatures, just for your benefit, have to sit in the polling centre until a late hour of the night. My good friend E. Kokorin once requested a permit to vote away from home—meaning, he was under an obligation to vote in some other place. But regardless of this, an agitator

Part 3

245

suddenly appeared at his address. He pleaded that he had been given a permit, which exempted him from having to vote at his local polling centre. But the agitator pointed out that there was no documentary proof of this. Then Zhenya went off to the polling centre and rummaged there for more than an hour, stubbornly ignoring the advice: ‘Just vote, and have done with it!’ But he found the necessary piece of paper, produced it triumphantly, and toddled home. 7.III. Somewhat restored, I made a phone call, not from my floor, to the Grigorenkos. Zinaida Mikhailovna came to the phone. ‘I congratulate you on the eighth of March. Can’t you guess who’s calling? Big Volodia…’ (Little Volodia’s voice was half an octave higher than mine, but he was younger. After Kosterin’s funeral he never made another appearance, but for some time afterwards I went on being called ‘big Volodia’). ‘Volodenka, my dear, I kiss you as though you were my own son!’ ‘Which bit are you interested in, the top of my head?’ ‘No, the teeth, the cheeks!’ And Pyotr Grigorievich said: ‘You have some rotten friends, you know. I was trying to phone you, but nobody would give me your exact address.’ (I took the hint. But Grigorenko was suspicious: he didn’t know that my earlier visit, before I called when they were both at home, was unplanned, and this damage to our relationship was never fully repaired). ‘Otkrytoye Freeway. Opposite the district heating centre.’ ‘Where is that?’ ‘Shchelkovskoye or Preobrazhenskoye. The freeway is open, but the hospital is closed.’ (Rudakov related how, at the Kirovsky Gates, he saw with his own eyes a hand written notice: ‘The Open Restaurant is closing. But the closed restaurant will reopen here’). ‘Tomorrow I am spending a day with my wife—the eighth of March; and the day after I am coming to see you.’ ‘I will probably be leaving in a week’s time.’ ‘Fine. But I’ll see you before then. All the best.’ 9.III.20h.15m. Pyotr Grigorenko left an hour ago. He brought me a bunch of flowers, two cartons of fresh cream, one of sour cream and ten eggs—for a moment I thought I must be a patient in an ordinary hospital.

246

Part 3

‘What kind of hospital is this?’ he thundered in the hallway. ‘I’ve already told you—it’s freeway open, hospital closed.’ This huge man, walking with a stick, made his way along the corridor, and the invalids of the nomenklatura looked up from their televisions, as though to ask—what kind of imposing visitor do we see here? Entering the ward he said with his deep voice: ‘The government has always wanted to consolidate—now they have built yet another hospital for themselves!’ Looking around for a clever device that would allow patients to adjust their beds to any position, so they would not have to strain themselves in order to talk to the attendants, he shook his head. ‘In the world of money, where everything is bought and sold, it costs a lot to lie in a comfortable hospital like this. But even if a person is ready to make a contribution towards getting better treatment for someone close to them, their money cannot be used for that purpose; and I’m not talking about Kuntseva…’ Pyotr Grigorievich handed me a postcard from Zinaida Mikhailovna. I was so touched by her greeting kisses and by the postcard itself, that I reached for a cigarette, although up to then I had never smoked in the ward— I always went out into the corridor. Grigorenko was in a black suit (his only one?), the one he wore at Kosterin’s funeral. He arrived with a Tartar from the Crimea, a nice young fellow (perhaps his escort was there to deter anyone from murdering him on a deserted street?) They sat with me for more than an hour. ‘When we live in freedom I am going abroad to look at Europe, the Mediterranean and America, and then return home—I don’t need power; all I want in life is to see the world; that’s what I have been dreaming about…’ 10.III. Pyotr Grigorievich told me that on the eighth he and Zinaida Mikhailovna went to see Raikin, and they thoroughly enjoyed the performance. They say that Raikin was in Kiev not long ago, and, as he went onto the stage, he heard somebody say very clearly: ‘Let’s hear what this Yid has got to tell us.’ Raikin stood stock-still. ‘Who said that?’ Silence. The actor repeated his question, but receiving no reply, shouted: ‘Curtain!’ They cut short the Kiev tour and left. One of the patients, an old swine with a carbuncle, Aleksandr Gavrilovich Kostromin, called on me in the ward this morning (he spent almost all of his

Part 3

247

time in front of the television screen). He had found out that I sometimes listened to Jerusalem radio. ‘What a scandal—four governments have been unable to deal with the Yids!’ ‘I just hope that these four governments will not succeed in getting the United Nations to stop the war that has just started, and that the Yids will take Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and Amman! Then this whole saga will come to an end!’ The old swine pursed his lips, but remained silent; he never again engaged me in conversation. 12.III. A lady, with a finely developed musical voice, gave a rendering on the radio of a Kautsky poem, but in total ignorance of how it should be spoken. She was a very refined, knowledgeable lady, and reliably consistent in her delivery—Irina Viktorovna Ilina. Her pronunciation of some words—‘Kautsky, renegade, ripens’—was quite outlandish. She was political as well, and criticised both the left and the right. She needs to take herself in hand; then she could think of becoming a fine announcer on an oblast channel, or might even make it on All-Union radio. 15.III. ‘Yes…Dubček is not the one; somebody new is needed, they have overlooked…’—a young handsome Uzbek (or Turkmen) was talking. He has twice been abroad, and knows everything. The Soviet-Chinese conflict was on television. ‘What a scandal, what a blow—Communists against Communists!’ The leader of some learned coordinating group in the Council of ministers muttered (not too loudly): ‘China—this is something positive, while we are just a negative.’ However, on another occasion he came out with: ‘Let’s crush them all before it’s too late!’ But Nikonov said: ‘If we are brothers then we must understand that they also want a bite of the apple. We must give them back their historic lands, they are hungry… At the front our soldiers had to make do with American canned food, while banquets were being organised for the staff officers—it was really shameful…’ It’s a very difficult job working in the cafeteria of this hospital—a girl came here whose previous occupation was operating a crane; she worked for a month, trying to work things out for thirty or forty patients, each with their

248

Part 3

different orders. The only thing they had in common was that nobody would refuse black caviar—‘but perhaps you would prefer marinated nightingales’ tongues this morning?’ The poor cafeteria worker did not know what to do— read the dinner orders; or lay the tables; or attempt to decipher who had ordered the schnitzel, or the Kiev cutlet, or the pike cooked in the Polish manner. Quite different from an ordinary hospital, where you simply dole out forty portions of semolina, and tell them all to stay healthy! I began to help the cafeteria assistant to sort out the orders and collect the empty plates. The nomenklatura patients were shocked and immediately perceived in my behaviour some kind of hostile threat by a potential demagogue: everyone must remain in their appointed place—one person settles governmental issues, the other person feeds him! The hostile silence would be broken by: ‘This is the one who is waiting on the waitress!’ Everyone began to smirk and gossip. But in the end the situation was saved, and honour as well. I don’t know what the cafeteria assistant thought about my ‘suspicious behaviour’, but she seemed to regard me with gratitude and even tenderness. 98. THE KLYAZMA SANATORIUM What a picture: personnel and patients know about each other, embrace each other, kiss each other, relay greetings to each other, ask about each other’s friends and domestic affairs. In the room are five ancient beds of red wood; on the table are two numbers of the ‘Stars’ magazine, both open at a piece about the Chakovsky ‘Blockade’, as well as today’s newspapers and a little transistor in the shape of a woman’s powder box. On the bedside table of one of the occupants lie two dog-eared books: ‘With Trigger Cocked’ and ‘The Trace of a Day’—detective stories. And an issue of ‘Youth’ open at an extract from the memoirs of Konev: ‘At the Battle for Moscow’. There is black caviar and other delicacies on the tables in the dining room; but they are giving me an omelette—I am on a strict diet after resection of my stomach. The doctor, a beautiful brunette of thirty-five, was trying to persuade me to give up smoking, frightening me with talk of impotence and an agonising death. What she had to say worried me, and I went off to have ‘my last smoke’. The cutlery on the tables was silver, engraved with old names. At the time of the expropriations there wasn’t enough for everyone, but the most deserving received such items in the form of collective ownership. One of the

Part 3

249

female patients (or was it a ‘guest’ enjoying a restful holiday at this health resort?) made a flattering comment about father: ‘Nikolai Ivanovich—he is a fine person. Everybody here admires him.’ Apart from myself only one man remained in the building, a fifty-year old with a bacillus infection. On Sunday his wife and an infantile daughter of about twenty years came to visit him. Afterwards my neighbour told me this story: they discovered that one of the youngsters had gonorrhoea, and they wanted to know from whom she had caught it. ‘I don’t know’, she said, ‘we were playing the star game’. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘The girls were lying down with their heads together like a star, and the boys were going around them, and the one who finished first could run off to get some wine.’ They had to check the whole ‘star’… An unknown man, who was resting, asked: ‘Did you steal the transistor? What are they broadcasting?’ I told him. ‘Stalin missed an opportunity when he let Tito escape alive, he slipped up badly…’ They let Dubček off the hook, they let Tito off the hook, they let Ceauşescu off the hook; Gomulka was the only they caught in time. My neighbour in the ward was G.A. Davydov, a man of short stature, neat and usually self-restrained. Like everyone else—only half-educated. He asked me: ‘Have you been to Golitsino? That’s certainly a well-equipped place!’ Because I am an intolerant fool I managed to provoke him on our first evening together. Listening on the radio to some kind of address by Yakhimovich, he went on repeating: ‘There are the dregs for you! That reptile! He’s the enemy!’ ‘But why tell lies about the best way of keeping law and order?’ All evening we provoked each other, and as time went on this apparatchik, naturally, began to look at me with Chekist suspicion. ‘Our people… Foreigners…’ he went on muttering in a pained way. ‘They slander, incite, vomit anti-Soviet propaganda… Nikita is the guilty one… Africans are still paying the price… Waiting for the time when the FRG throw their forces at us… We don’t need another Dubček… It’s just a put-up job…’ There was real anxiety in his voice. ‘This has all been planned…’ An elderly lady in the postal department: ‘Everyone is against us. It’s the Americans who are stirring up trouble, they are the real dregs!’ I went to the television. ‘Eisenhower has died.’ The only response came from the old cleaning lady: ‘They should all go away and die like dogs…’

250

Part 3

‘Who is ‘all’?’ ‘All those who are against us…’ Davydov (sarcastically): ‘Has the government been listening to the voice of the people?’ Davydov left the sanatorium. A student from a philosophy faculty, a very fit, hefty young man, twenty-one years old, took his place. Exams were approaching, so he had brought with him books on Marxism and other dialectical themes; but he mostly read detective novels. Sitting beside me in the dining room was a stylish young lady. In the evening she took me aside and in a bossy manner told me: ‘We know that you spend all your time listening to Voice of America.’ ‘Well, that has nothing to do with you!’ ‘Yes it has! And please don’t corrupt the boy; don’t you dare listen to it when he’s around, otherwise we shall be forced to intervene!’ ‘I assure you, this is a mistake… Incidentally, he only listens to music; if somebody begins to talk on the radio he just reads a book. You can check, he’s not being threatened by anything.’ ‘Just remember what I have said to you.’ Later I met this ‘boy’ on a trolleybus, I asked him if he had heard about the flight of Anatoli Kuznetsov, and I began to describe the event in detail. The circumstances of the flight did not interest the hulk-philosopher. ‘Well, what is there to say about it?’ 99. THE LAST LINES OF A CONFISCATED DIARY A pre-revolutionary Bolshevist pamphlet went missing from an open-sided summerhouse: ‘Demagogy and provocation’, describing the methods which the Black Hundred used to discredit the intelligentsia, aliens, students and other ‘enemies within’. Later another historical Bolshevist pamphlet was taken in the course of a search of my flat, published by the magazine ‘Lightning’: ‘Who are the enemies of the people?’—on the same theme. I was sure it was original, not a reprint; and they returned it to me two years later. A war of words broke out between Piotr Grigorenko and myself because of Yevtushenko and China. I was saying that the severance of relations with China was a blessing, since it brought nearer the crisis of totalitarianism; and some of his government-approved verses could also prove useful. ‘You are not a Marxist-Leninist then!’ ‘How could I be? That’s the first time I have heard such a suggestion! It won’t be a joke if the Chinese come here with their ‘brotherly hand of friendship’! Heaven preserve us from the Yellow peril…’

Part 3

251

‘All my life I have been trying to drive out the chauvinist in myself— chauvinism feeds on the fear that you might be deprived of something when in fact you possess nothing of your own!’ Zina Mikhailovna popped her head round the door. ‘You could hear your ‘conversation’ from the other side of the street!’ Father was with me. He was sitting there, silent. I am again without work—and I had been signing petitions against the government. ‘Ho Chi Min has died…’ ‘I know…’ ‘You know?! Have you been listening to the BBC again?’ ‘No… At seven this morning they were not transmitting on twenty-five kilohertz, so I guessed…’ ‘What have you been putting your name to? What on earth have you been writing? Grigorenko arrested? So you think you will be able to help him with your petitions? Don’t send me out of my mind—at least for the present the authorities have not begun to suspect that I am totally irresponsible. But you—all you can think of is to discredit Soviet authority. All I want is to read something of yours that manages to get official approved.’ Yura S. posed this question to a teacher of Marxism: ‘What becomes of minorities that have been evicted from their homelands and dispersed—how is it possible to preserve their national culture?’ The teacher went pale; his eyes shifted uneasily. ‘I have in mind the Indians of America’, added Yura. The teacher, relieved, took a deep breath and was happy to explain: ‘Well, this is one of the contradictions of the capitalist system!’ They say that Mstislav Rostropovich telephoned Furtseva, minister of culture: ‘Yekaterina Alekseevna, so that there won’t be any gossip, I am letting you know privately: Solzhenitsyn is staying at my house at present.’ ‘But how is that possible?! We have just given you permission to make a journey abroad!’ ‘Yes, well… Maybe I am not able to go abroad after all…’ 100. VASILI IVANOVICH CHAPAEV AND PETKA proved to be an unusually fruitful vein of humour. And they soon added the girl Anka to the act, and even Furmanov as well, although the latter, an army commissar, did not enjoy popular esteem. ‘Vasili Ivanovich, they have caught Fantomas!’

252

Part 3

‘So that’s what you kids think… Let him go. This is not Fantomas, it’s Kotovsky, the hairless general.’ ‘Two steps forward all those who got drunk yesterday!’ Everyone stood still, although they were all drunk of course, including the chekist Mishka Vikhman. But Petka had been drinking on his own, so it did not occur to him to deny anything. He alone stepped forward two paces. ‘So, you will come along with me to get some hair of the dog. The rest of you—left turn! Forward march to Commissar Furmanov’s political class! ‘Vasili Ivanovich, can you play on the piano?’ ‘Yes I can, Petka, but it’s not much fun—the cards are always slipping off.’ ‘Vasili Ivanovich! Could you make it with one of our Russian ones?‘ ‘Of course, Petka!’ ‘And a ‘Tsiganochka’?’ ‘And a Hungarian!’ ‘And a ‘Polka’?’ ‘And a Polish one!’ ‘And what about a ‘Hokey’ and a ‘Kokey’?’ ‘Hold on a minute, I can’t manage two of them at the same time!’ ‘Would you believe it, Petka, in the academy exams they were asking us to draw a quadratic trinomial. But I didn’t do that one; I couldn’t even imagine what three square members would look like!’ Now, five years on, some quite schizophrenic jokes have come into circulation: Vasili Ivanovich, along with Shtirlits the Russian spy, is going to Berlin to meet—Fidel Castro. ‘Salute, comrade combine operator!’ Chapaev asks Shtirlits: ‘And who is that?’ ‘Solzhenitsyn.’ ‘Is it really… Just look how they have blacked him up!’ And they tell jokes about Veronica Mavrikievna and Avdotia Nikitichna (created by the cross-dressing vaudeville artists Vladimirov and Tonkov) and about Khazanov (his stage mask—the Soviet idiot). 101. YAKIR ‘Come on Count Gusarov, let’s go,’ he said, colliding with me outside his porch. We went by bus just as far as Avtozavodskaya Metro, bought a bottle of ‘Starki’ vodka and some Algerian wine, and looked around to see if any cars or taxis were following us.

Part 3

253

‘Strange there are no tails on Sundays…’ At the lift, when we were back at Yakir’s house, he suddenly came out with: ‘You are secretly in love with my daughter, Irochka!’ Then in his flat he had declared for all to hear: ‘Mister Gusarov said: “Why would I need these Yakir-Jews—I only came here because of Irochka!” True or not? Then tell me: “I do not love your daughter!”’ We were again wandering about, and again it was Sunday. I had seen with my own eyes two cars full of people behind our bus. ‘Look,’ said Piotr Yakir, ‘Right now we are passing the place where cars are banned, but these two cars will go through, and at the next bus stop someone from one of the cars will get on our bus.’ We got off at Avtozavodsky Bridge; but at that point the leading car of our escort had already gone onto the bridge. ‘Look, now he will turn round on the bridge, which is strictly forbidden. That will give them something to think about.’ But they did turn around. We changed from one tram to another, trying to break away from them, but at Paveletsky station, where we wanted to get off, our escort was already there ahead of us. ‘What are they doing—trying to shove their portable radios up my arse?’ And there were spooks looking at us from under some arches, and from doorways; but here we managed to hide ourselves. It’s round-the-clock duty for these fellows, but each of them gets twice as much as a normal wage— it’s a kind of All-Union onanism. When, earlier, we left my friend’s front door, a man went past who had the look of a chief spook—‘Time to go!’ (Now, years later, I can’t help wondering: why was it necessary for Petenko Yakir to fray his nerves, and mine? It’s not as though we had any subversive ideas in our heads on this visit; and my friend, who had no involvement, was scared—he was a person with some status as well as a party ticket. But at that time I did not think it through; I admired Yakir’s courage, I compared him with Stenka Razin and Emelka-pomazannik, and I even imagined that by making this comparison I was doing him some honour.) In our side street, where everybody knew each other, strangers began to appear—one of them I passed several times, and I looked at him intently on each occasion. If somebody’s presence there was not to do with ‘work’, then I certainly would ask: ‘Why am I being stared at?’ But he seemed not to be responsive, even when, behind his back, I loudly followed this up with: ‘Get down to some work!’ Yakir warned: if you anger them—by wandering around aimlessly or by simply adopting a cocky attitude, they might turn on

254

Part 3

you in a quiet corner and smash your face in. ‘It’s you who is the idler, they are hard at work.’ All my life they have been showing films about spies to unhappy Soviet people; but now they are after ‘ideological saboteurs’, as they try to eradicate potential counterrevolution. An unpleasant woman about forty years old spent whole days until late at night walking up and down with an athletic stride; on two occasions I asked her to change her route. On the first she did not reply, and on the second she screeched: ‘Hooligan! I will call the militia!’ So I said: ‘You could at least change your hat!’ She didn’t answer… At that time I was living on my own, and if the KGB showed any generosity to a good Komsomol girl, they would have encouraged her to learn all our secrets from under the bed covers; then there wouldn’t be any need for this poor auntie to freeze under people’s windows. ‘I suppose she will be going up and down my street until they finally take me in,’ I said to Yakir. He was surprised: ‘But what have they got on you?’ ‘Who is this at such an ungodly hour?’ asked Yakir’s mother, Sarra Lazarevna, in her old lady’s voice. ‘Is it Gusarov? From what sobering-up station has he come from?’ ‘Why do you feel so sorry for Theodorakis?’ Pyotr challenged her. ‘You are an old idiot! They tortured and shot your husband, and you were in prison for eighteen years, while for seventeen years your own son was lying on a prison bed—and you feel sorry for Theodorakis! Don’t you feel sorry for those who are closer to us? What about Gabai? Aren’t you upset about Vladimir Bukovsky? What can I do for all these people? There’s nothing that can be done about your Theodorakis!’ But today the old mother is worried not only about Theodorakis—with her half-blind, and later completely blind, eyes she looks in the direction of the lift: ‘Why is it that Peti has not been around to see me for such a long time?…’ (This was written more than five years ago, at a time when I looked at Pyotr as though at a blinding sun. Admittedly it puzzled me, even then, that he continued to visit the Korr’s house, if Ivan Korr, abandoned by his wife, spent days and nights at Yakir’s place. He needed Lapin or the faithful Valentina Ivanovna or myself to accompany him; but was this risk always justified?) Before Pyotr’s arrest they carried out two big searches and thoroughly cleaned out his library, which was used by his friends. And after the arrest

Part 3

255

they even took away his transistor radio, probably, in the heat of the moment, thinking it was a transmitter. Afterwards began the indiscriminate searches of other people. But at Yakir’s place they found ‘Model Programme for a Terrorist Group’, written in my hand. On this occasion my ‘April-the-first joke’ could have ended rather sadly. It was an extremely untimely attempt to excite polemical passions. In the past I did something similar when I had a chauvinistic pamphlet ‘Word of the Nation’ published in ‘Chronicle’. In a search of my place they found my diary, and there was a little phrase there, something like: ‘a dangerous female acquaintance of Yakir’s’. Valya Yakir, in a fit of anger accused me of denunciation in the form of my diary notes. And probably many people would like to know: how, in our country, is one supposed to keep a diary? I began to visit Yakir’s place in Avtozavodskaya Street ever more rarely. But I went on with my diary—in the full expectation of a future search. When in exile Yakir’s official residence was in Riazan. I went to see him and reached the entrance of his flat along a carpeted corridor on the second floor. He showed me a letter from Tverdokhlebov lying on his writing table. Tverdokhlebov had written that he would only blame Yakir, if and when he had to undergo bad experiences similar to his. This meeting did not bring us joy—only two weeks earlier they had buried the dissident Iliusha Gabai, and nobody had visited Yakir since then. He was annoyed; and he predicted that Solzhenitsyn along with Sakharov would come to a bad end, that the organs would find something to fit them up with. ‘I also thought my own activities would just go on and on—but then came the high jump.’ He called Solzhenitsyn scum. ‘An informer won’t end up in one of those cosy sharashka prisons for scientists!’ I disagreed—that’s just where effective people do go, people with knowledge and experience. But they would probably send an informer to the stores building or a warehouse. Nowadays there are other people around, who have not been maimed from adolescence by a camp sentence; one must hope they will prove themselves in a different way. But there surely was a time when Pyotr Yakir, in almost complete solitude, struggled to keep aloft the banner of opposition. Then, as a result of his own actions, he saw his reputation destroyed. The last time I saw Piotr was at Krasin’s send-off. There was a long and boring conversation going on about what could, and could not, be taken through customs; whether it was worth handing things over to the antiquities commission, and how much money one might get. Krasin didn’t want anyone to go with him to the station; I wouldn’t have gone anyway.

256

Part 3

If I happen to survive Pyotr, I will certainly come to his funeral, and I will say to strict moralists: ‘And where were you when a much lamented group of people was rushing about and giving work to a whole government department?’ I don’t know if it’s true, but apparently Yakir boasted to somebody from the Korr family: ‘When they arrest me, you will get to know another Yakir!’ When they did arrest him, he had scarcely crossed the threshold of the investigator’s office before saying: ‘Just leave my daughter alone—she’s pregnant!’ The interrogator, one must suppose, began to rub his hands. But what did Krasin’s arrest signify, after he was able distance himself from his past, and become rehabilitated—albeit stigmatised as a ‘parasite’? 102. EPILOGUE It’s coming up to the hundredth Mayday, celebrating victory, and hardly a day goes by without a psychiatrist calling at the door. ‘Are you not ready to undertake something voluntarily?’ ‘What are you going on about, I’m scared of everyone.’ Yevmenov arrived. ‘You do realise they’re going to take you in? It could be today. Call in at the commission. That will be to your advantage; otherwise you will have nothing to your credit.’ I called in, a little drunk, made a noise, smiled, and left. On the first day of Easter I did some heavy drinking—and woke up in the militia department in Avtozavodskaya Street. ‘What for?’ ‘You were staggering about. Called us policemen.’ They didn’t show me the arrest note. The interviewing officer said: ‘You seem to be in a bad way, you’ve got to get yourself dried out.’ He was looking at me for the first time, so how could he know anything about my normal appearance? I suppose somebody knocked me out before turning out my pockets; but I only had on me a small notebook and a fiverouble note, now lost in uncertain circumstances. If they had found something really ‘interesting’ they might have sent me off to get ‘cured’; but they just said: ‘Well … You don’t look too good…’

Part 3

257

I would like to write about a lot more, but to keep the typewriter for an extra week is too great a luxury for me. Losing a borrowed machine would be especially unpleasant, and this could happen at any moment. I saw a photo of Valeria Novodvorskaya. It was standing next to photographs of Altunian, Bukovsky, Khaustov. A dear, spiritual face. She has written a poem called ‘Requiem’, it begins like this: There they go, unable to see reason, Or soften the anger of their speech, Mindless—surely; But forerunners, perhaps, of worse to come… What is up there in the blue heavens, Above the edges of the dawn? Not a land of Soviets—but surely: Russia herself… I conclude with these words. 5 May 1970.

Chronology

Events in boldface relate to the life of the author. 1918-21 Civil War 1921 formation of USSR; Stalin appointed General Secretary of Party 1921-2 famine 1924 death of Lenin 1925 born, Stalingrad 1927 Trotsky and Zinoviev expelled from Party c1928 taken to live with aunt Zina in Vladikavkaz 1928 first Five-year Plan 1929- forced collectivisation of agriculture 1930 with mother, goes to live in Sokol, Moscow 1930 gulag system established; suicide of Mayakovsky 1932-4 famine in Ukraine resulting from collectivisation 1934: assassination of Kirov 1935 enlisted in Young Pioneers 1935- Party purges 1936-8 show trials 1937-8 Stalin’s Great Terror 1939-40 Nazi-Soviet Pact; Germany and USSR attack Poland; Katyn massacre 1938 goes to live in Sverdlovsk; then in ’39 family moves to Perm 1940 enlisted in ‘Fighter Battalion’ 1941 German invasion of Soviet Union 1942 Voroshilov visit; brief stay in Moscow 1941-4 siege of Leningrad 1943-5 army service 259

260

Chronology

1945 Soviet troops in Berlin 1945 returns home; one year at Perm University 1945 one year at Moscow University; family returns to Moscow 1947 beginning of Cold War 1947 enrols in theatre school; parents split up; father to Belorussia 1948 anti-Jewish campaign; murder of Mikhoels c1950 son born; marries Eda 1951 in Ryazan, takes role of Lenin in ‘The Family’; transferred to Skopin 1952 sacked from theatre; fracas in Moscow restaurant, arrested 1952-4 prisoner at Serbsky Institute, Kazan Hospital, etc. 1953 death of Stalin; Doctors’ Plot; Khrushchev confirmed as General Secretary; Beria toppled 1954-5 working for Sverdlovsk Film Studio; returns to Moscow 1956 anti-Stalin campaign; 20th Party Congress 1956-9 goes to live in Frunze after separating from Eda 1957 first Sputnik; Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, Shepilov dismissed; Voroshilov chairman, Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 1957 mother takes in Shepilov after he was stripped of his post and ostracised by Khrushchev 1958 Pasternak awarded Nobel prize 1959 returns to Moscow 1959 American Exhibition in Moscow 1960 divorced by Eda, who remarries 1962 Cuban missile crisis 1962 begins to write (samizdat); mother dies c1962-5 work: radio; theatres in Caucasus and Siberia; TV editing; on staff of External University of the Arts c1963 meets Solzhenitsyn; associates with Yakir; surveillance 1964 fall of Khrushchev; Brezhnev appointed General Secretary 1966 samizdat ‘Report’ dated 1.4.66 1966 prisoner for 3 months in Kashchenko Hospital 1967 marries Galya from Kiev; briefly a prisoner in Kashchenko Hospital (propiska infringement; jubilee of revolution) 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia 1968 in anticipation of invasion, briefly taken into custody 1969 marries Ludmila; in ‘Kremlin’ hospital for surgery; recuperates in Klyazma Sanatorium 1970 Solzhenitsyn awarded Nobel Prize 1970 prepared for period of imprisonment over May Day holiday 1973 Trial of Yakir and Krasin

Glossary

Agitprop: Propaganda work. April Theses: A ten-paragraph policy for revolution presented by Lenin to an assembly of Social Democrats in Petrograd following his return from exile in 1917. It called for the end of war with Germany and transfer of power to the Soviets. Aurora: On 25 October 1917 the Bolsheviks seized power in the capital Petrograd in the name of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, which they now dominated. The chief event was the seizure of the Winter Palace and of the Provisional Government’s ministers. The assault on the Winter Palace was signalled by the firing of a blank round from the cruiser Aurora which was anchored nearby. Bagration, Pyotr Ivanovich, Prince, General: Commanded Emperor Alexander’s second army against Napoleon at battle of Borodino 1812 (qv). Balashikha: 20km ENE of central Moscow. The author was evidently a prisoner there. Adjectival form of name: Balashikhinsky. Bedlam: From the English Bedlam, a corruption of the name Bethlehem Royal Hospital, outside Bishopsgate, London. It was founded in 1247 and ‘distracted’ patients were accommodated there from 1377. The site was used for other purposes after 1815. Beria, Lavrenti Pavlovich: (1899-1953) Georgian Bolshevik; became close Stalin associate in 1938, in charge of secret police and national security. Executed after Stalin’s death. Black Hundreds: Pre-revolutionary paramilitary groupings, anti-Semitic and opposed to socialism. They organised widespread pogroms, the worst in Odessa where 800 Jews were murdered.

261

262

Glossary

Blank, Maria Aleksandrovna: Daughter of Alexander Blank, a baptised Jew who became a wealthy doctor and landowner in Kazan. She and her husband Ilya Ulianov were the parents of Lenin. Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich: (1880-1921) Symbolist poet. Bolsheviks: In 1903 the (Marxist) Social Democratic Labour Party split into two opposed factions of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; the former wing seized power in October 1917 under Lenin’s leadership. The democratic Mensheviks were repressed. Borodino: 100km W of Moscow. The Battle of Borodino, the hard fought engagement in August 1812 which preceded Napoleon’s brief occupation of Moscow. Bortko, Vladimir Vladimirovich: A director of the Literaturni Theatre. Botvinnik: Russian chess champion. Brodsky, Joseph: (1940-1996) Poet and translator. With no paid occupation, and his works banned from publication, he was taken into custody by KGB and in 1964 tried on a charge of ‘parasitism’. In 1972 he was deported. Bronshtein: Actor who later changed his name to non-Jewish Bronyev. Budenny, Marshal Semion Mikhailovich: (1883-1973) Before the revolution was a sergeant-major in the elite Imperial Dragoons. Later formed the celebrated Cavalry Army on the Bolshevik side against Denikin (qv). Commander Southwest Front in early phase of World War II. Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich: (1888-1938) Bolshevik economic theorist. Member of Politburo after 1924 and general secretary of Comintern after 1926. His opposition to Stalin’s policies resulted in his expulsion from the Politburo in 1929. In the purges Bukharin was executed after 1938 show trial. Bukovsky, Vladimir: In 1963 the twenty-year-old dissident Bukovsky was sent to psychiatric hospital for possessing a copy of The New Class by Milovan Djilas. He was put on trial in 1972 for compiling evidence about the committal of himself and other dissidents to psychiatric hospitals. In 1975 he was deported in exchange for imprisoned Chilean communist leader Luis Corvalan. Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasevich: (1891-1940) Satirist. None of his important work (eg The Master and Margarita) was published in his lifetime. Bund, Jewish: Russia’s first mass-based Marxist party; established in 1897 with 35,000 members by 1905; demanded national autonomy within a Russian federation with Yiddish as the official language; demands rejected by Russian Marxists. Buneev: A director of the Serbsky Institute. Bush, Ernst: German singer and song writer.

Glossary

263

Bykhovski, Abram Isaevich: On staff of the Motovilikhinski Ordnance Factory. Central Committee of the Republic: The All-Russian Central Executive Committee, highest state body of the RSFSR (qv). Chapaev, Vasili Ivanovich (Chapai): Army commander with the Reds in the Ural area in the Civil War; stories were written and films made about his heroic exploits. Chapai and Petka: TV comedy characters; Chapai broadly based on the historical Vasili Chapaev. Chatsky: A leading character in a play by Ostrovsky. Chaureli/Chiaureli, Mikhail: (1894-1974) Georgian actor/director on stage and screen Cheka: Original name of the Soviet secret police, 1917-22; succeeded by OGPU (qv) but the term Cheka continued to be used. Personnel: chekist, plural chekisty. Cherepanov: Prisoner in the Liubianka. Chernov, Viktor Mikhailovich: (1873-1952) Socialist Revolutionary Party leader, Chernyshevsky, Nikolai: Author of Lenin’s favourite novel What is to be Done (passed by the Tsarist censor, surprisingly, and published in 1862), which was seminal to the revolutionary movement in Russia. Civil War, the: (1918-21) A struggle for the survival of Bolshevism fought by the Reds – who held Moscow, Petrograd and the Great Russian heartland – against the less organised Whites. The bulk of the forces on both sides consisted of ideologically apathetic peasants impressed at gunpoint. Club of Happy Innovators: TV programme devoted to innovative ideas. Comintern: Acronym for Communist International, the world organisation of Communist parties that existed from 1919 to 1943. Committee of Party Control (KPK): Existed to ensure ideological conformity within the Party. Constituent Assembly: A multiparty legislative body with large antiBolshevik majority elected in November 1917 after the Bolshevik Revolution. It met in January 1918, but was forcibly dispersed when it refused to adopt Bolshevik proposals. D’Aktil, Anatoli Adolfovich: A well-known composer. Daniel, Yuli: Also known as Nikolai Arzhak. Following interrogation in Lefortovo prison, was convicted in 1966 in a stage-managed trial of ideological subversion, and sentenced to five years in a labour camp. Decembrists: Russian officers and intellectuals who took part in the unsuccessful liberal uprising against Nicholas I in December 1825. Denikin, Anton Ivanovich: (1872-1947) Tsarist military leader. In the Civil War Denikin lead the White army in the southern theatre against

264

Glossary

the Bolsheviks 1918-20. But by early 1921 the ‘Reds’ had achieved overall victory. Denikin emigrated. Djilas, Milovan: Yugoslav Communist, author of heretical exposé of the Soviet system ‘The New Class’, published c1960. Dolgoruki, Yuri: A Russian hero under Peter the Great. He and his men were slaughtered by the Cossack Bulavin in 1707. Dombrovski: A Polish revolutionary. ‘Dopre’: Colloquialism for the House of Government. A large Constructivist residential building reserved for senior Party members, located on the river Moskva opposite the Kremlin. Also known colloquially as the House of Ghosts because many residents disappeared from there during Stalin’s purges. Duclos, Jacques: French Communist politician. Dzerzhinsky, Feliks Edmundovich: Founded the Cheka (the All-Russsian Extraordinary Commission for Struggle against Counter-Revolution and Sabotage) in 1921. ‘Do not think I seek forms of revolutionary justice; we are not now in need of justice. It is war now – face to face, a fight to the finish. Life or death!’ He also headed the successor organisations GPU and OGPU, and was succeeded by Menzhinsky. Dzhoint (Agro-Joint): Soviet sponsored (and part-financed by US) Jewish agricultural settlements in the Black Sea area of the SU during the inter-war period. Approx. 60% of the population forcibly evacuated to central Asia in 1941. Dzhunkovsky: Chief of police under the Provisional Government. Ehrenburg, Ilya Grigorevich: (1891-1967) Soviet writer and journalist. He spent many years in Paris, and was the author of The Thaw and of memoirs of the Stalin era. Fantomas: Villain in a popular French film series. He usually wore a rubber face mask, and, in this context, his physiognomy might be confused with that of the hairless Russsian general Kotovsky. Fast, Howard: Left-wing Jewish American author. His novel ‘Road to Freedom’ was first published in 1944. Fedyakin, Vitya: Director of an aircraft factory in Gorky. Feikhtvanger (Feuchtwanger, Lion): German writer who visited Moscow in 1937. ‘…for the reader in the Soviet Union there are, as it were, no clear divisions between the reality in which he lives and the world he reads about in books.’ Fortuemes, Earl Leonard, ‘Levkino’: Prisoner at various times in the Lubyanka, Vladimirsky and Serbsky prisons. Furmanov, Dmitry: Writer. According to Stalin the duty of the writer was to portray Soviet life, not as it was in reality, but as it should become. The class struggle had thus to be represented by predictable narrative

Glossary

265

models. Furmanov’s Chapaev (1923) fixed the model of the civil war hero. Furtseva, E.A.: Minister of culture. Well-known for her ignorance of cultural matters, and as a consequence the butt of much cynical humour. Gapon, G.A.: Father Gapon led the workers’ march to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in 1905. He, like other radical clerics, were disavowed by the Church’s conservative leaders, who would have nothing to do with religiously inspired calls for social reform. Gorky, Maxim (Peshkov, Aleksei Maksimovich: (1868-1936) Writer. Disagreed with Lenin and lived abroad (1921-8); returned to Russia in 1931; died under mysterious circumstances. Gottwald, Klement: Communist president of Czechoslovakia. Gottwald’s close associate Rudolf Slansky was arrested towards the end of 1951. Following a year of interrogation he, along with fourteen co-defendants (eleven of Jewish origin) were convicted of conspiracy. Slansky and ten others were executed. In 1952 thirteen Soviet citizens were executed in Moscow on charges of espionage for the United States, but this was on the basis of their alleged association with cosmopolitanism and Zionism rather than on reliable evidence. GPU: Acronym for State Political Administration; ie Soviet secret police in 1922; previously known as Cheka; after 1922 known as OGPU. Grigorenko, General Piotr Grigorevich: (1907-1987) Former Red Army General, became a dissident in 1961; in prison hospitals for several years after 1969. Author of ‘A Letter to the Magazine Problems of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’, samizdat, 1968, and Memoirs, 1983. Gulag: The Soviet penal system under Stalin; acronym for Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps. Gusarova, Pana/Panochka Alekseevna (Tiuniaeva): Author’s mother and sister of: Tania, Zina, Grigori (Grisha) and Vasili Alekseevich Tiuniaev. Panochka’s mother: Maria (‘Masha’) Andreevna Tiuniaeva; name before marriage: Smirnovaya. Gusarov, Georgi Petrovich: Author’s uncle; actor and singer. Gusarov, Nikolai Ivanovich: The author’s father. After separating from his wife Alekseevna (c1950) he fathered two sons by another partner, the elder named Sasha. Official posts: 1. Third secretary of Sverdlovsk obkom 1938-1939, 2. First secretary of Perm oblast 1939-1945, 3. Inspector of the Central Committee 1946-1947, 4. First secretary of Central Committee of Byelorussian Communist Party 1947-1950, 5. Inspector 1950- ?, 6. Later (See ch.66): 1st secretary of Tula obkom. Nikolai’s mother: Fedosia Petrovna (Grandmother Fenia).

266

Glossary

Gusarov, Vladimir (Volodia/Volodenka) Nikolaevich: The author, born: Stalingrad, 1925). Married: 1. Eda Tarakian; 2. Galia; 3. Ludmila Kirenkova. Himmler, Heinrich: Himmler established the first Nazi concentration camp at Dachau in 1933. Hunveibin: Youthful revolutionary force under Mao Tse Tung in the 1960’s. Isolator: (1) Type of political prison established in early stage of Soviet regime for fractious Bolsheviks and other political foes. (2) In a labour camp, the designation for a building with punishment cells. Ispolkom: Executive committee. Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseevich: (1893-1991) Close associate of Stalin; in charge of railways. Ousted from leadership in 1957. Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich: (1875-1946) Nominal President of Soviet Union 1919-46; after 1938 was Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet. Kalmykia: Autonomous republic, 150km W of Astrakhan. Kalmyks: ethnic group in Northern Caucasus, exiled by Stalin in 1944 on charges of collaboration with Germans. Kamenev (Rosenfeld), Lev Borisovich: (1883-1936) Prominent Bolshevik leader, expelled from Party in 1927, readmitted and re-expelled; executed after 1936 show trial. Kaplan, Fanya (Dora): (1888-1918) A Left Socialist Revolutionary; executed after unsuccessful attempt on Lenin’s life in 1918. Katyn Forest: Near Smolensk, 400km WSW of Moscow. The mass graves of Polish officers executed at Katyn in 1940 were discovered in 1943. The Soviet Union denied guilt for Katyn until President Boris Yeltsin released the incriminating documents in 1992. KGB: Acronym for Committee for State Security (Soviet secret police) after 1953. Khalyarmina, Serafima Ivanovna, ‘Sima’: Colleague of the author’s father in NKVD. Khimki: Reservoir, ‘Dinamo’ aquatics centre, 15km NW of central Moscow. Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich: Khrushchev’s four-hour speech, drafted by D.T. Shepilov and delivered in closed session at the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956, was a turning point in USSR politics. The indictment of Stalin included the following items: Lenin’s call for Stalin’s removal from the General Secretaryship of the Party in 1923; the repressions of 1937-8 (itemised); failure to anticipate Hitler’s invasion in mid-1941; ethnic deportations of the Second World War; the post-war carnage in the Leningrad affair, the Doctors’ Plot and the Mingrelian Affair; the drastic decline in internal party democracy. He

Glossary

267

exculpated himself, as well as the current presidium, and glossed over the fact that millions of ordinary people had died in the course of the Civil War, the NEP, the First Five-year Plan and forced agricultural collectivisation. The main outcome of the congress was the release of more than eight million people from incarceration in camps and prisons. Subsequently Khrushchev was able to put down a putsch by Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich, also Shepilov who had become one of their last-minute allies. Kirov (Kostrikov), Sergei Mironovich: (1886-1934) Kirov, the Party boss in Leningrad, was murdered in 1934, probably on Stalin’s orders (partly to diminish the political importance of Leningrad relative to Moscow). This was the beginning of a campaign of terror which culminated in the show trials of the Bolshevik leaders Bukharin, Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1936-8, and subsided only when Russia entered the Second World War in 1941. Kolchak, Admiral Alexander Vasilevich: (1873-1920) Tsarist admiral; led anti-Bolshevik forces in Siberia, 1918-20; executed. Kolokolkin, Vissarion, Professor: First husband of Zinaida Mikhailovna Grigorenko. Kolyma: 250km N of Magadan, eastern Siberia. Region of northeast Siberia; centre of labour camps under Stalin. Kombrigada: Brigade commander. Komissar: Commissar: former name of head of a Soviet government department; later, Ministr. Komsomol: Russian acronym for Young Communist League. Konev, General Ivan: Konev and Zhukov reached Berlin at the end of April 1945. KPK: Committee of Party Control. KPZ: Kamera predvaritelnovo zakliuchenia: cell for prisoners on remand. Krai: Large administrative region; territorial unit. Kraikom: Party Committee administering a krai. Krasnaya Presnya (Presnya): District of Moscow together with a transit prison within its borders. Also the location of barricades put up by 1905 revolutionaries. Kuznetsov, Anatoli: Poet, defected 1969, died 1979. Lenin (Ulyanov,Vladimir/Volodia Ilich; ‘Lukich’): Pre-eminent revolutionary in modern European history, the driving force behind the Bolshevik rise to absolute power. Main events of this process: Social unrest culminated in abdication of Tsar Nicholas II (March 1917); hostilities with Germany brought to an end following return of Lenin to Petrograd (April 1917); coup d’etat followed seizure of Winter Palace and Provisional Government’s ministers (October 1917); Socialist Revolutionary Party divided, Left and Right, Left SR’s support-

268

Glossary

ing Bolsheviks; Constituent Assembly dispersed by armed force at its first meeting (January 1918); Soviet government formed; Trotsky, appointed People’s Commissar for War, founded the Red Army; Lenin’s land reforms proposed peasants should hold on to their land; Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 1918) resulted in loss of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Ukraine and much of Belorussia, all annexed by the Tsars over preceding centuries; Tsar Nicholas II and family slaughtered at Yekaterinburg (July 1918); Civil War 1918-21 (victorious Reds v. Whites fitfully supported by Western powers); Lenin officially banned opposition within the party (March 1921); famine of 1921-2 resulted in 5 million deaths; Lenin incapacitated by strokes (from May 1922); died January 1924. A definitive edition of his writings, consisting of 55 volumes, was published in 1965; but in the 1970’s there was a ban on its sale, since parts of it were considered to be inconsistent with Party doctrine. Litvinov, Maxim: Soviet commissar for foreign affairs. Represented Stalin abroad, and in particular (following Russia’s entry in 1934) at the League of Nations. Lubyanka: Popular designation for secret police headquarters and prison in central Moscow, named for adjacent street and square (now Dzerzhinsky Street and Square); housed Rossiya Insurance Company before the 1917 Revolution. Magadan-camps: Camps located close to the northern shore of Sea of Okhotsk in Eastern Siberia. Majdanek (Maidenek): Centre for Nazi mass-murder of Jews 1941-1944 in the General Government area of Poland. Mandelstam, Osip Emilevich: (1891-1938) Poet, died in a transit camp. Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich: (1893-1930) Futurist poet; committed suicide. MGB: Acronym for Ministry of State Security 1946-53; succeeded by KGB. Mikhoels, Solomon Mikhailovich: (1890-1948) Jewish actor and theatre director; see Introduction. Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich: (1895-1978) Close associate of Stalin in charge of consumer-goods aspect of the economy. Foreign policy adviser to Khrushchev. Retired 1966. Militsia: Militia (cf: police, gendarmerie – pre-revolutionary terms; since then used insultingly for members of the militia). Molotov (Skryabin), Vyacheslav Mikhailovich: (1895-1978) Close associate of Stalin; served as Premier and Foreign Minister. Ousted by Khrushchev after so-called 1957 anti-Party coup. Retired. MOPR: International Organisation for the Assistance of Casualties Narkom: People’s committee (eg for education).

Glossary

269

Narodnaya Volya: Literal translation: People’s Will. Secret terrorist society dedicated to overthrowing Tsarism; existed from 1879 until disbanded in 1881 after assassination of Alexander II. Nekrasov, Nikolai Alekseevich: (1821-1878) Nekrasov came from the landed class, but his poetry, as with that of Turgenev, expressed the vengeance and sorrow of the peasantry, and he made much use of its colloquialisms. NEP: Acronym for New Economic Policy, a period of limited private enterprise, 1921-28. Nikolia-the-fool: The Holy Fool: perhaps a figure of fun to a sophisticate, but traditionally a pious, wandering, figure on the edges of Russian society, sometimes believed to posses the power of prophecy; possibly descended from the Asian shamans. NKGB: Designation of Soviet secret police, 1943-46; acronym for People’s Commissariat of State Security. NKVD: Designation of Soviet secret police, 1934-43; acronym for People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Nomenklatura: The ruling class. Government posts filled by Communist Party elite rather than from the senior ranks of departments. Novosibirsk: City at intersection of trans-Siberian railway and river Ob, 1,500km E of Urals. Obkom: Regional Committee of the Party. Oblast: Administrative region. Oblispolkom: Regional Executive Committee. Obltorgotdel: Regional Trade Department. October barricade: Refers to October insurrections in major cities, 1917. OGPU: Designation of Soviet secret police, 1922-34; acronym for United State Political Administration. Okhrana: Name of Tsarist secret police from 1881-1917; Russian word means ‘protection,’ standing for the full designation: Department for the Protection of Public Security and Order. Old Square, Moscow: Government offices; used symbolically here to represent the transience of Soviet power. Oprichnik: Member of a group tasked with enforcing the will of Ivan the Terrible. Osventsim (Auschwitz): German concentration camp and execution site for Polish prisoners from 1940, as well as a source of slave labour for industrial companies such as IG Farben. Otkrytoe Freeway: Literally, open freeway, ie for everyone; contrasted with (in word-play) zakrytaya (closed) hospital, only for nomenklatura. Paine, Thomas: (1737-1809) English-American philosopher, author of The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason.

270

Glossary

Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich: (1890-1960) Poet and novelist; 1958 Nobel Laureate, People’s Commissariat: A government department 1917-46; thereafter the word Ministerstvo, Ministry, was used. Plekhanov, Georgi Valentinovich: (1856-1918) Nobleman-revolutionary. Along with Axelrod and Zasulich, he founded the Black Partition movement in 1880, rejecting the use of terror, and arguing that only a social revolution coming from the people themselves could be both successful and democratic. His book ‘On the Question of Developing a Monistic View of History’ (published in 1895, eluding censorship) was influential in spreading Marxist ideas. He became a Menshevik leader, and opposed the Bolsheviks’ 1917 coup. Politburo: The Political Bureau of the Communist Party Central Committee, the chief seat of power in the USSR. A small body, five strong during the Civil War, but expanded thereafter. Politsia: Police, see: Militsia. Prokuror: Public prosecutor. Propiska: Compulsory residence permit. Propusk: Pass or permit. Provisional Government: Coalition government after overthrow of Tsarism, March to November 1917; first under Prince Georgi Lvov, later under Kerensky; overthrown by Bolsheviks. Psikhushka: Slang for psychiatric prison hospital. Pushkin, Alexander: (1799-1837) His poem Amidst the Noisy Ball is mentioned in chapter 49. Raiispolkom: District executive committee. Raikom: District committee. Raven: Road vehicle for transporting prisoners. Razin, Stepan Timofeevich (Stenka): Heroic rebel leader in the Cossack rebellions of the 1660-70’s. He fought the government at various locations along the rivers Don and Volga, while some towns such as Tsaritsyn and Kamyshin opened their gates to him. In 1669 he equipped a fleet and sailed the Caspian, stopping and plundering Russian ships, defeating a Persian squadron and even raiding the north coast of Persia. He was eventually captured and executed in Moscow in 1671. A legendary figure in Russian national poetry. Rech-camp: A group of camps within the Vorkuta complex (qv) that was established for political prisoners in 1948. The name refers to its location near a river (rechnoi), probably the Usa, a tributary of the River Pechora. Prisoner numbers rose to a maximum of 35,000 in 1952. There was a harshly suppressed uprising in 1953, and it was closed in 1954. ‘Report’ (Dokladnaya Zapiska): Title of a samizdat article by the author.

Glossary

271

Riabushinsky, Pavel Pavlovich: (1871-1924) Russsian industrialist and anti-Bolshevik leader. Members of the Riabushinsky family and Alexander Konovalov founded the Progressist Party in 1912 with the aim of establishing the bourgeoisie as the leading element in Russian society. RSFSR: Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the largest Soviet state. Rykov, Aleksei Ivanovich: (1881-1938) Close associate of Lenin and Stalin; Premier of Soviet Union 1924-30; shot after 1938 show trial. Saint Petersburg: Previously: Petrograd 1914-24, Leningrad 1924-91. The city was the capital of Russia from 1712 to 1918. Sakharov, Andrei: Academician, nuclear physicist. A Nobel laureate in 1975. Confined to residence in Gorki in 1980. Invited to return from exile by Gorbachev. Widely acclaimed as Russia’s liberal conscience. Died 1989. Samizdat: Illegal (self) publication. Serbsky Institute for Forensic Psychiatry: The punitive use of psychiatry against ideological subversion became a major weapon of the KGB during the cold war, but some inmates in these institutions had been prisoners since the terrors of the late ’thirties under the NKVD. Psychiatrists recruited by the KGB were instructed to diagnose political dissidents as cases of ‘paranoiac schizophrenia’, but later investigations concluded that few were suffering from any psychological disorder. In 1983 Soviet psychiatrists resigned from the World Psychiatric Association just in time to avoid expulsion for systematic abuse of their patients. Sharashka: Slang for a special research centre in which the scientists, specialists and technicians are all prisoners working under prison discipline. Shepilov, Dmitri Trofimovich: Foreign Minister until 1957. Shepilov was once editor of Pravda; later he held the post of Foreign Minister at the time when the Swedish agent Raoul Wallenberg was eliminated in 1947. (Wallenberg was detained in Budapest and brought to Block Two of Lubyanka Prison, which gave the appearance of a hotel. VIPs and foreigners were held there who were scheduled for either recruitment or liquidation. (Cf Leonard Fortuemes’s account in chapter 68 of main text). Wallenberg (according to Sudoplatov) was probably killed in the nearby toxicological laboratory. As with Mikhoels (qv) Wallenberg was involved in international negotiations which had a Jewish dimension; in addition he had been positively identified as an asset of German, American and British intelligence.) In the aftermath of the Twentieth Party Congress of 1956 Shepilov was stripped of his post.

272

Glossary

Subsequently he was domiciled for a time with the author’s mother (chapter 16). Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich: (1905-1984) Writer, 1965 Nobel laureate. Short Course: Familiar title of the standard Stalinist version of the history of the Soviet Communist Party; in use from 1938 until after Stalin’s death in 1953. Shvernik, Nikolai Mikhailovich: (1888-1970) Associate of Stalin; tradeunion chief, 1930-44 and 1953-56; President of Soviet Union, 194653. Sinyavsky, Andrei: Writer, pseudonym: Abram Tertz. Along with Yuli Daniel (qv), he was sentenced in 1966 to forced labour in the Gulag. After release, Sinyavsky emigrated in 1973. Smersh: Stands for smert shpionam, ‘death to spies’; acronym for Soviet counterintelligence during World War II. SMOG (Samoe Molodoe Obshchestvo Geniev): Literally: Youngest Society of Geniuses, an underground literary society of the 1960s. Social-Democratic Workers’ (SD) Party: Marxists who wanted the urban working class to lead the struggle against the monarchy. They believed that a bourgeois revolution and the full development of a capitalist economy should precede the transition to socialism. Disputes among émigrés arising from the publication in Munich in 1902 of Chernyshevsky’s (qv) book ‘What is to be Done?’ resulted in the formation of Bolshevik and Menshevik factions, Lenin becoming the leader of the former. Socialist Revolutionary (SR) Party: Created in 1890s, advocating a federal structure for the Russian state, self-determination for non-Russian peoples, and socialisation of the land. It split at its first congress in Finland 1905 into left and right wings (for and against use of terrorism, respectively). The left wing cooperated briefly with Bolsheviks after they seized power in 1917 and took part in the Bolshevik government until the Brest-Litovsk treaty in 1918, which removed Russia from World War I. The Socialist Revolutionaries formed the majority of the Constituent Assembly, which was forcibly dissolved by the Bolsheviks after one session in 1918. The Civil War followed, and the party was suppressed in 1922. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (Isaich / Ignatich / Sania): (1918-2008) Writer expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974. Rather than espousing Western liberalism, he put his faith in specifically Christian values and Russian customs. This put him at odds with Sakharov and other dissidents. His labour camp novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, published in 1962 by the journal Novy Mir (New World), brought Solzhenitsyn out of obscurity. It received the approval of Khrushchev,

Glossary

273

surprisingly; but persecution of dissident writers continued. He also wrote The Gulag Archipelago, Cancer Ward and Prussian Nights. SS ( Schutzstaffel ): Elite corps of the Nazi Party under Heinrich Himmler, of which the Gestapo was a subdivision. Stalin: Dzhugashvili, Iosif Vissarionovich (‘Yoshva’, ‘Yoska’, ‘Koba’): (1879-1953) Soviet political leader; named General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. After Lenin’s death in 1924 he gradually eliminated political rivals in a series of purges culminating in the show trials of 1936-38. His collectivisation policy of 1932-3 cost three million lives in the Ukraine. Stanislavsky, Konstantin Sergeevich: (1863-1938) Stage director. Cofounder of the Moscow Arts theatre in 1898; known in the West for the Stanislavsky method of acting. Stolypin, Pyotr Arkardevich: (1862-1911) Tsarist statesman, served as Minister of Interior after 1906; known for agrarian reform including resettling peasant families and their stock in Siberia; murdered by a Socialist Revolutionary. His name was adopted for the special railway carriages used for the above purpose and for transporting prisoners. Sulamifi: The black and comely princess in the Song of Solomon – Shulamite in the King James translation. Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR: The state legislature of the Russian Federation. Supreme Soviet of the USSR: The national legislature of the Soviet Union; met usually twice a year to rubber stamp decisions taken by the Soviet leadership. Suslov, Mikhail: (1903-82) The leading ideologist in the Politburo in the 1970s. Taganka: Prison in Moscow built by Tsar Alexander I in 1804, demolished in the 1950’s. It is remembered in V.Vysotsky’s poem ‘Taganka – Every Night Filled with Fire’. Taininka: Site in the Moscow region of the Tolstoyan community. Tarsis, Valery Yakovlevich: Unable to have his work published in the Soviet Union he sent his manuscript of The Bluebottle abroad. Shortly before its publication in 1962 he was imprisoned in a Moscow psychiatric hospital. His case attracted much attention in the western press; he was released in 1963 and emigrated in 1966. TASS: Newspaper named after the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. Theodorakis, Mikis: Musician and politician, born 1925. Influential opponent of the Greek Junta, 1967-74, which imprisoned him. Tolstoy, Aleksei Nikolaevich: (1883-1945) Soviet writer; a member of the 1937 Supreme Soviet (national legislature).

274

Glossary

Tolstoy, Count Lev: (1828-1910) Novelist and philosopher who made it his life’s work to change the conditions in society. Started a school for peasant children at Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate, in 1859. Deeply spiritual, he rejected the doctrines of the church and began to preach a practical religion, based on Christ’s example as a living human, that engaged directly with the major issues. His ‘Christian anarchism’, popular with the peasantry, was thought of as a threat to church and state, and he was excommunicated in 1901 following publication of his hugely popular novel Resurrection. Trotsky (Bronshtein), Lev (Leon) Davidovich: (1879-1940) Associate of Lenin; first Soviet Defence Commissar, until 1925; expelled from Party in 1927; deported to Turkey in 1929; assassinated in Mexico City by a Soviet agent, Ramon Mercader del Rio, directed by Pavel Sudoplatov. Trotsky’s attempts to gain control of the world Communist movement was damaging to Stalin and the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Stalin’s commitment to ‘revolution in one country’, versus Trotsky’s internationalism, advocating revolution of all working classes simultaneously, lay at the heart of their ideological differences. Tverdokhlebov, Andrei: Late in 1970 Sakharov and two fellow physicists, Valeri Chalidze and Andrei Tverdokhlebov founded the Committee for Human Rights, with Solzhenitsyn as a corresponding member. Ulyanov, Aleksandr (Sasha) Ilich: Elder brother of Vladimir (Lenin). Participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Alexander III in 1887; convicted and hanged. Valukhin, Konstantin Sergeevich: First secretary of Nadezhdinsk obkom. Varyag: Outnumbered, this Russian cruiser, together with the Koriets, put to sea from Chemulpho on the far Eastern seaboard in February 1904 in a heroic but futile effort to repulse a Japanese invasion fleet, whose mission was to secure the disputed territory of Korea for Japan. The Varyag was sunk. Verkhovsky, Aleksandr Semionovich: Theatre director in Riazan. Vlasov, Lieutenant General Andrei Andreevich: (1900-46) Red Army officer; taken prisoner by Germans in 1942; led captured Russian forces against Soviet Union; handed over to Russia by Allies after the war and executed. Vorkuta-camp: 2000km NE of Moscow. This complex of camps existed for the exploitation of the coalfield in the Pechora river basin. Historically the River Ob gave access to this region until the railway was extended from Kotlas to Vorkuta. Voroshilov, Marshal Kliment Yefremovich: (1881-1969) Close associate of Stalin; Defence Commissar; Soviet President 1953-60. Vykrest: Convert (to Christianity).

Glossary

275

Vyshinsky, Andrei Yanuarevich: (1883-1954) Lawyer and diplomat; former Menshevik turned Bolshevik; chief state prosecutor in show trials 1936-38; Deputy Foreign Commissar and Minister 1939-49 and 195354; Foreign Minister 1949-53. Weber, Max: (1864-1920) German sociologist and political economist. Served as adviser to the committee that drafted the Weimar Constitution of 1919. Yagoda, Genrikh Grigorevich: (1891-1938) Secret police official; People’s Commissar of Internal affairs 1934-36; shot after 1938 show trial. Yakir, Iona: Army commander shot during the Great Terror; father of Pyotr Yakir. Yakir-Krasin affair: Pyotr Yakir and Viktor Krasin were leading members of the group which produced the samizdat Chronicle of Current Events. Though exhausted by many years of persecution, Yakir found the strength to resist during the early stages of his interrogation, but was finally persuaded to put his signature to a KGB document confessing to passing tendentious information to foreign correspondents and distributing slanderous assertions at home for propaganda purposes. The search of his flat (see chapter 101) occurred on 14.1.72 and he was arrested on 21.6.72. During the 14-month period leading up to his trial, which commenced 27.8.73, he was subjected to a highly sophisticated interrogation, involving a stool pigeon sharing his cell, which is documented in KGB archives (Andrew and Mitrokhin 2000 pp 408-413). Krasin had been repeatedly interrogated between 1968 and 1972, and was then also arrested. After coming under intense psychological pressure he agreed to write a lengthy confession, and even to read out to a gathering of dissidents in Yakir’s flat an appeal to end the dissident campaign. As a result, fifty seven dissidents named by Krasin and Yakir were summoned for interrogation by the KGB, the majority undertaking to cease their activities, while a still dissenting minority were put under ‘operational surveillance’. During 1973 154 people were cautioned by the Moscow KGB, eighty of them for ‘possessing, writing and distributing ideologically harmful material and for anti-social and politically harmful conduct.’ After their trial Yakir and Krasin were paraded in front of TV cameras at a press conference to which Western correspondents were invited. This was a major propaganda coup for the KGB which dealt a body blow to the human rights movement in Moscow; but for the time being at least Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn were still beyond their reach. Yakir was sentenced to three years’ exile in Ryazan, later reduced to one year; he returned to Moscow but ceased all dissident activity. Yangel, Mikhail / Misha Kuzmich: Candidate member of the Central Committee.

276

Glossary

Yaroslavski, Emelian M.: Soviet historian, a major contributor to The history of the All-Union Communist Party: A Short Course, which bolstered Stalin’s infallibility. He reorganised the Union of the Godless. Yesenin, Sergei Aleksandrovich: (1895-1925) Poet; committed suicide. Yevmenov: Psychiatrist, Pokrovskoe-Glebovo hospital. Punitive psychiatry, which had been used under Khrushchev, was extended after 1964. Doctors were instructed to expect an influx of ‘paranoid schizophrenics’ shortly before public festivals, which would be a result of measures taken by the authorities to clear the streets of potential ‘troublemakers’ (see chapter 102 of main text). Individuals were encouraged to turn themselves in for short courses of ‘treatment’, or risk enforced incarceration for longer periods. Yevtushenko, Yevgeni: Yevtushenko came to the fore as a young poet in the years following Khrushchev’s ascendancy. He wrote Babi Yar, which denounced not only the Nazi mass murder of Jews in Ukraine but also the Stalinist terror-regime. Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich: (1895-1940) As head of the NKVD in the years 1936-38, Yezhov carried through the largest scale peacetime political persecution and blood-letting in European history, known to posterity as the Great Terror. In 1938 Beria replaced Yezhov, who was accused of treasonable conspiracy with Britain, Germany, Japan and Poland, and executed in 1940. Zaitsev, Aleksandr Iosifovich: Prisoner in Kazan and Liubianka prisons. Zamkov, Volodia: Author’s friend in Perm and in the army; son-in-law of Marshal Vershinin. Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich: (1884-1937) Returned to Russia from abroad in 1917, but opposed Bolsheviks; emigrated in 1932. His futuristic novel ‘We’ (1920), published in London in 1924, influenced Huxley and Orwell. Zhdanov, Andrei Aleksandrovich: (1896-1948) Close associate of Stalin; shaped cultural policy after World War II in which the arts were pilloried and their practitioners persecuted. Anna Akhmatova was a victim, and following expulsion from the Writers’ Union in 1946 she was forced to live in penury. Her son Lev was arrested, tortured and sentenced to ten years in a labour camp. Zhukov, Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich: (1896-1974) World War II leader. Even in retirement Zhukov remained, in the minds of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, a potential threat, the military hero who might lead a coup against them, or be the choice of the military to replace them, and his apartment was continuously bugged. Zina: Author’s aunt. See: Gusarov. Slava, son by first husband. Zinoviev (Apfelbaum), Grigory Yevseevich: (1883-1936) Associate of Lenin; expelled from Party in 1927; shot after 1936 show trial.

Bibliography

Andrew, C. and Mitrokhin, V. The KGB in Europe and the West: the Mitrokhin Archive. Penguin Books. 2000. Applebaum, A. (ed.). Gulag Voices: an Anthology. Yale University Press. 2011. Chamberlain, L. The Philosophy Steamer: Lenin and the Exile of the Intelligentsia. Atlantic Books. 2006. Figes, O. A People’s Tragedy: the Russian Revolution 1891-1924. Jonathan Cape. 1996. Figes, O. Natasha’s Dance: a Cultural History of Russia. The Penguin Press. 2002. Grigorenko, P.G. Memoirs. Harvill Press. 1983. Hingley, R. Russia: a Concise History. Thames and Hudson. 1991. McCauley, M. The Soviet Union 1917-1991. Longman. 1993. Mochulsky, F.V. Gulag Boss. Oxford University Press. 2011. Montefiore, S.S. Young Stalin. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. 2007. Service, R. A History of Twentieth-century Russia. Penguin Books. 1997. Snyder, T. Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. The Bodley Head. 2010. Solzhenitsyn, A. The Gulag Archipelago. Collins/Harvill Press and Fontana. 1974. Sudoplatov, P. and A. Special Tasks. Little, Brown and Company. 1995. Tarsis, Valery Yakovlevich. Ward 7. Collins and Harvill Press. 1965.

277